EXCLUSIVE Mel B's farmhouse Hollywood makeover: Spice Girl is giving her £2m Yorkshire idyll some zigazig ah with an indoor pool, cinema, and reiki room

Daily Mail​

7 hours ago

She's been settling down to a quiet life raising goats and chickens after swapping the Hollywood Hills for a rambling farmhouse in her native Yorkshire.
Now pop star Mel B has been busy spicing up her dream country home with a glamorous makeover.
MailOnline can reveal the full details of the singer's ambitious plans to transform the former working farm into a modern day family home complete with leisure facilities befitting a global superstar.
Earlier this year we told how the Spice Girl had splashed out £2.2 million on the secluded property which is set in 11 acres of land and enjoys spectacular views over the surrounding Yorkshire Dales.
Now we can reveal Mel - who celebrated her 50th birthday earlier this week with a glitzy party - has been given the go-ahead by planners to build a pool house and cinema room along with an extension that will create a magnificent new master bedroom suite.
The principal bedroom, featuring a trendy standing bath, will sit alongside a large dressing room, sweeping walk through area and an en-suite bathroom.
Documents show Mel wants to create a reiki room for natural healing and a treatment room as well as a new gym and sauna and an outdoor space for a hot tub and ice bath.
There will also be a huge new kitchen and a new dog kennel complete with a special shower and 'flap' to allow the star's two Rottweiler 'protection dogs' and Yorkshire terrier Cookie to come and go as they please.
The property already has a swimming pool but the plan is to cover it with a new extension with room for poolside loungers - so it can be enjoyed all year round.
The building - which will also provide the space for the gym - will lead off to a new enclosed outside kitchen and dining space.
The singer, whose full name is Melanie Brown, recently gave an insight into her new life when she appeared on BBC show Alison Hammond's Big Weekend last month.
Mel greeted the TV presenter on a powerful quad bike dressed in orange high visibility working overalls and jacket and completed the look with a leopard print crash helmet.
Describing her morning routine, Mel told how she was dressed in her 'daily get up' and told how she would 'sort the chickens out' and 'potter around' with the goats, one of whom she had named Sharon.
She told how the farmyard animals, which she said she had reared since they were 'babies', all had their 'own personalities' but added that there was 'a pecking order'.
Mel told how the farm was very much 'a work in progress' and how when she moved in the only piece of furniture she had was a 'Spice Girls Union Jack sofa' she had acquired after the band's comeback tour in 2019.
Mel went on to show how she had already begun putting her own stamp on the property after she decorated the living room with leopard print wallpaper.
Meanwhile her hairdresser fiancé Rory McPhee, 38, had lined an upstairs landing with wall-to-wall Spice Girl tour posters, photos and memorabilia to surprise her when she was working away.
During the programme, Mel and Alison also spent an evening under the stars roasting marshmallows in a fire pit on the edge of a wooded area at the property.
Mel has also been keeping fans updated on her radical change of lifestyle with occasional posts on social media.
In one Instagram post she wrote: 'On Sundays we hug trees, spend time with the animals and have a Sunday dinner.'
In another, Mel was pictured in a sports bra and hot pants as she bagged up fruit for the goats.
And returning to the subject of her house purchase, she concluded: 'This will be my happy home, I'm thinking about my dad, I'm thinking about my kids, and I'm thinking about all those survivors out there - you CAN reclaim your power. Trust and believe.'
Mel's hideaway was once a modest farmhouse and barn that was sold off by the council in 1993 and turned into a substantial country residence.
The five-bedroom property - in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (OANB) - featured 6,950 square feet of floor space and Mel's two single storey and one double storey conversions will see it increase in size by 18 per cent.
The property - which includes a separate detached office and double garage - is set in extensive gardens with an ornamental pond and two paddocks with sweeping views across rolling hills and a nearby reservoir.
Describing her proposed plans, Mel's planning agent said in a statement: 'The property is completely concealed by substantial landscaping and has very limited views into the site from the wider landscape and surrounding countryside would be adequately respected.
'The internal arrangement is fundamentally unchanged but updated to reflect the brief of modern-day family life and enhance the existing leisure facilities.
'The pool hall is deliberately kept detached from the host dwelling, low level, and subservient to the host property intended to echo many similar outbuildings found on other farmstead properties throughout the Dales.'
Local planning officials gave her the go-ahead for the Grand Designs-style revamp after there were no objections from neighbours.
They said: 'Overall, it is considered that the proposed works will not detract from the character of the dwelling or that of the surrounding AONB landscape.'
Earlier this year Mel - whose neighbours include former England manager Sir Gareth Southgate and ex Manchester City defender Micah Richards - told how she had at last discovered what she 'really really wants' and how returning to her Yorkshire roots was 'one of the best decisions she had ever made'.
She described how she had finally found her 'forever' sanctuary and how the farmhouse was the perfect place to home for her three children Phoenix, 26, Angel, 18 and Madison, 13.
Mel told her local paper: 'I have three goats, nine chickens now and I've got my two protection dogs and I have a forest.
'So I come home and breathe the fresh Yorkshire air, go to tend to my animals and chill at my house and feel very thankful and appreciative of it.
'This is the safest, best place that I could be.'
Mel told how she had come 'full circle' after growing up in a council house in Leeds before travelling the world to international acclaim and relocating to America.
Her journey has, at times, been a rocky one. Her first marriage to Dutch dancer Jimmy Gulzar, who is Phoenix's father, ended acrimoniously after two years with the couple divorcing in 2000.
The couple had set up home in Little Marlow, Bucks, but Mel has told how she was driven out by racist hate mail.
She told how she received letters saying: 'Get out of this village, you don't belong, you can't buy something like this.'
She moved to the States and had a relationship with actor Eddie Murphy, father of Angel, before going on to marry film producer Stephen Belafonte in Las Vegas in June 2007.
The couple bought a vast home in the Hollywood HIlls, once owned by movie legend Rudolph Valentino.
The property had four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a cinema, recording studio, a chef's kitchen, outdoor kitchen, gym, games room and a swimming pool overlooking the LA skyline.
But the 10-year marriage ended in a bitter divorce with Mel accusing Belafonte of being abusive, allegations which he denies.
The warring couple put the home up for sale for £6.8 million but despite an opulent refurbishment and sought-after setting, they had to twice slash the price to just below £5million as they became desperate to sell.
Despite making more than £80 million during her career, Mel endured years of financial hardship after the split.
Last year she told how she was left with just £700 to her name after costly divorce and custody battles.
Mel revealed she ended up so broke she took to shopping in budget stores Lidl and Costco after returning to the UK in 2019 and moving into her mother Andrea's bungalow with her three kids.
She said: 'I didn't expect that to happen in my 40s after a successful career but I had nowhere else to go.'
Now she's getting her life back on track and is hoping it will be third time lucky when she ties the knot with Rory this summer.
The couple will wed at St Paul's Cathedral after Mel was granted special permission as she was awarded an MBE in 2022 for services to charity and vulnerable women.
In recent weeks, Mel has been taking a break from her farmyard duties jetting backwards and forwards to the US where she is appearing in a new season of America's Got Talent which began airing last week.
Mel returned as a judge after a six season absence.
She also managed to fit in a romantic break with Rory in Paris last week while hosting a lavish 50th birthday party at the plush Habbibi rooftop bar in Leeds where guests included fellow Spice Girls Emma Bunton and Sport Spice Mel C.