Claudia buys herself a mountain

For someone who has earned millions posing for the cameras, Claudia Schiffer is going to incredible lengths to protect her privacy. The 31-year-old supermodel has become so enraged by tourists, nosey locals and stalkers spying on her as she sunbathes by the pool of her Majorcan villa that she has bought a nearby mountain and is building two homes on top of it.

Schiffer - worth £30 million - bought the 403,400 square-metre mountain peninsula in the south west corner of the island for £980,000 from a friend of King Juan Carlos of Spain. In the past few months she has been secretly having two properties built onto it. To build the properties, she has set up her own company.

Planning permission allowed Schiffer to build either one 1,000 square-metre house or two 500 square-metre houses on the peak of the mountain. She opted for the latter.

Half of Schiffer's new double retreat will be used to house her father Karl-Heinz and mother Gudrun, as well as her sister and brother.

The other house will be for herself and new husband Matthew Vaughn. Until the houses are finished, Schiffer will continue to live in the 300 square-metre, £2million villa she had built in 1997 at the foot of the mountain overlooking the bay near Andraitx in the small resort of Camp Del Mar.

It was there that she spent many a lazy summer afternoon with her then partner, the magician David Copperfield. But even he couldn't make the legions of prying holidaymakers disappear. The problem wasn't made any easier when a local hotel 800 metres away started advertising in brochures that room 712 had a great view of Schiffer's back garden.

In August 2000, she incurred the wrath of residents by constructing a fence around her property, blocking a public pathway to a nearby 17th-century monument.

The local council upheld Schiffer's right to privacy and she has since had the fence made into a high wall. But it wasn't enough to keep out a string of stalkers - one of whom burst into the villa, threw a wedding ring at her mother Gudrun and yelled, "I want to marry your daughter."

The new home for family members will have a private en suite bedroom for each, a garage for three cars, a swimming pool, fitness room and jacuzzi.

In the coming months, most of the family's possessions will be moved into the new houses. Of particular importance will be the relocation of Schiffer's pet tortoise, which has its own garden at the current house.

Husband Matthew Vaughn first cemented his relationship with his new bride by buying her the pet. At the time, Schiffer said: "I love tortoises - there's just something about them."

The new houses will be Schiffer's seventh and eighth properties worldwide.

She also has homes in New York, Bayswater in London, Germany, Monte Carlo and the £5 million Coldham Hall in Suffolk, where she married in May.

The new houses will be on one of the highest points of the mountain peninsular Schiffer has bought - marked out here in yellow - and will give amazing panoramic views of the bay.

Schiffer's publicist, Kris Thikier could not be contacted for comment.

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