These include two Newport Beach mansions in a gated community overlooking the Pacific. One of them was recently on the market for an asking price of $8 million. A real estate advertisement said it featured "11,000 square feet of opulent European luxury with regulation tennis courts and a rambling terraced hillside orchard with view of the blue Pacific."
In Costa Mesa, the ministry owns 11 homes in a gated development adjacent to Trinity Christian City International.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday September 23, 2004 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 27 words Type of Material: Correction
Trinity Broadcasting -- An article about Trinity Broadcasting Network in Sunday's Section A misspelled Phenix City, Ala., where one of the network's supporters lives, as Phoenix City.
In Sky Forest, a resort community in the San Bernardino National Forest, the network owns a four-bedroom, five-bath home.
TBN officials say the real estate purchases were consistent with the network's charitable mission, because the homes serve as venues for broadcasts and provide lodging for the Crouches and fellow televangelists as they travel across the country. The properties have also been good investments, they said.
From 1994 to 1996, TBN spent $13.7 million to acquire Twitty City, a tourist attraction on the former Nashville-area estate of country singer Conway Twitty, along with some adjacent property. After extensive renovations, the site reopened as Trinity Music City USA, a Christian entertainment park with TV studios, a church, a concert hall and a movie theater.
The amenities include a pair of condominiums for the Crouches. One is furnished in Paul's taste, the other in Jan's, former employees said.
In Colleyville, Texas, near the network's International Production Center, TBN owns nine homes on 66 acres along a country road, a spread called Shiloh Ranch. Six horses graze in a pasture; TBN officials say they were gifts from admirers.
Paul and Jan visit from time to time, and TBN occasionally broadcasts specials from the ranch.
Ministry officials say that a Christian drug treatment program also uses the property, but former employees say the program left years ago and Colleyville officials say there is no permit for such an operation.
A Passion for Antiques
Wherever they happen to be staying, the Crouches indulge expensive tastes courtesy of TBN donors, former employees say.
Kelly Whitmore, a former personal assistant to Jan Crouch, said in interviews with The Times that she used a TBN American Express card to make numerous personal purchases for Jan and Paul, including groceries, clothes, cosmetics, alcohol and a tanning bed.
Whitmore, 43, who lives outside Nashville, worked at TBN from 1992 to 1997. On the air, Jan once called her "my right arm."
