Olivia's New Environmentally Friendly Home
Cancer stricken Olivia Newton-John has paid $6 million to build an environmentally safe home she hopes will help her beat the deadly disease. She hired experts to determine the perfect spot for the house, which is carved into a Malibu hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean so sea breezes will keep the Los Angeles smog at bay. Water to the six bathrooms is heated by solar energy and recycled to feed the gardens in and around the house.
“The house was built to be environmentally clean,” says Matt Lattanzi, the superstar songbird’s husband. “We have been health conscious for a long time, and we believe Olivia’s tumor was induced by the environment.” Olivia even refused to use recycled wood, fearing that it might contain some old, leftover toxins from the materials originally used to clean the wood. The house is built of non-toxic materials and the timber was from wood farms instead of natural forests. Workers were instructed to use only water-based paints and varnishes, eliminating possible toxins from oil-based paints. Biodegradable insulation was also used.
The 44-year-old singer, a self-confessed health nut, blames air pollution and chemicals for the cancer that struck last July and resulted in her having a partial mastectomy and seven grueling months of chemotherapy. Olivia says: “I kept asking myself, Why? All I could think was that the cancer could have been brought about by the environment we were living in. I kept thinking maybe it was the air we were breathing and the water we were drinking in Los Angeles. I felt hemmed in; there were too many people in L.A.” She even considered relocating after 17 years in California, with her husband and daughter Chloe, 7, back to Australia, where she grew up.
Instead, they’re packing for the move to their new, squeaky-clean palace only six miles from their old Malibu ranch, which is on the market for $3 million. “We wanted to find a spot that was free of pollution and build a home that wouldn’t poison us,” says Lattanzi of their new place. Olivia has also started a foundation to battle the disease after her best friend’s young daughter died of cancer. One of the Colette Chuda Foundation’s earliest grants is to study the effects of pollution in relation to the disease in children.