This week multimillion pound property developer and local mum from Blackpool, Kristina Castellina, is celebrating having created something truly unique in the local area which she hopes will attract visitors from all over the country, as she opened the doors to her latest renovation project – a 178 sq metre charming building, which she has transformed into ‘Empress Hall’.
A project inspired by lockdown and driven by Kristina’s own desire for connection, she harnessed her passion for creating beautiful spaces to develop this property into a party and retreat ‘celebration house’ – one that will help connect people and encourage celebration of life as; groups of friends, entrepreneurs, or colleagues… coming together to take time out of their busy lives. Kristina also has high hopes that her creative interior design and playful style will attract the eyes of film location bookers, celebrity photographers and indeed local stars themselves.
She said: ”I’m so excited to have created this incredibly charming property, which is focused around the joy of people coming to together to have fun, a space where life can be celebrated. I got so excited to bring this property to life again and I can already feel it is going to be somewhere very special – I get a great energy from it.”
Kristina, 36, despite training to be a professional singer and performer in her initial career, has built an impressive multimillion-pound property portfolio over the past few years, after realising she craved more security than a career in entertainment could provide. Despite travelling the world and performing at venues such as; MGM Grand in Vegas and singing alongside the likes of Bonnie Tyler and other celebrities, as Kristina started to think about starting a family, she was desperate to provide them with more stability than she’d had growing up and so retrained to take a different path, investing her life savings into mastering the art of property development. Whilst she has numerous properties under her belt, from locally, to far and wide, Empress Hall is a true passion project of Kristina’s very much indulging her creative showbiz side.
The building, which can sleep 24, has been created as a space to entertain and relax, providing true escapism from the trials and tribulations of everyday life – with a cinema room with a popcorn and candy trolley, games room with pool table, football table, old school arcade machines, a music room with bar, juke box and karaoke machine and a huge dining table and social area where guests can sit and eat together. Positive quotes around reminding people “they are enough”, to “live in the moment” and to have “self love” also create an empowering setting within Empress Hall.
She said: “I am so proud of what we have created. This project was a huge team effort, my builders Phil, Tracy and Lee were incredible and Lucy at Furnish my Property totally understood my vision and ran with it… there were so many more people involved, too many to mention, but every single person got such a buzz from working on this project. The Empress Hall is filled with love, passion and vibrancy.“
Having experienced turbulent teenage years, as her family moved from England to Scotland, Kristina struggled with fitting in and never really felt at home. She now uses her property development as part of her mission to empower others with spaces that safe, inclusive, and fun, and focuses on helping people come together to create beautiful moments and memories.
She said: “From being moved hundreds of miles away from my friends, to being bullied at school, to finding out I was adopted, my sense of security and freedom to ‘just be’ was constantly threatened. I didn’t have the natural playfulness of being a teenager – I rebelled because I was troubled and got in with the wrong crowds, as they were the ones accepting of me.”
The feeling that everything could be taken away at any moment, remained throughout most of Kristina’s life before embarking in property, which she now uses to provide financial security for herself and her family and she teaches others how to do this too.
Growing up in a working class family Kristina, who was a finalist in the Property Investor of the Year awards 2021, is proving that it does’t matter where you start but it’s where you decide to end up that counts. Changing her life for the better she is passionate about also having a positive impact on communities wherever she goes and Empress Hall is her latest contribution to this mission.
