Bill Gates buys Jenny Craig's horse farm for $18 million
Microsoft mega-billionaire Bill Gates just bought weight loss tycoon Jenny Craig's horse farm north of San Diego for $18 million, a year after he bought an equestrian estate in Florida for $8.7 million in cash.
Gates' 18-year-old daughter, Jennifer, is a competitive horsewoman.
Craig originally listed the facility, Rancho Paseana in Rancho Santa Fe, for $30 million in 2010. She had some trouble finding a buyer, though, partly because she wanted to sell to someone who would preserve the property for horses rather than develop it, her listing agent told the Wall Street Journal. It wasn't on the market when Gates bought it, said the Journal, which first reported the sale.
Gates has plans for a grand prix circuit for hunters and jumpers, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Craig had run Rancho Paseana as a thoroughbred training center and "layup" facility -- essentially a spa for exhausted and injured horses to enjoy a little R&R -- until financial challenges led her to close it last year.
The property's more than 200 acres include a guest house and office; four barns, each with 30 stalls; a three-quarter-mile racetrack; and acres of green pasture. It won't replace Gates' custom-built mansion outside Seattle as his primary home, of course.
Craig and her late husband, Sid, bought the ranch in 1995. She told a writer in 2009: "We named the farm after Paseana" -- their first champion, a bay mare -- "because she was the best mare we ever had and she had given us so much joy watching her win one grade one race after the other. No horse deserved to be remembered more than she did."
Craig is delighted to have sold Rancho Paseana to someone who will preserve the property for its intended purpose, she told the Union-Tribune.
"I was happy that the buyer is someone who can afford to turn it into the showplace it was meant to be. It will be kept as a horse barn so the neighbors will be thrilled ... the person who bought it will make it like it can and should be."
That's the hope, anyway. At his Florida estate, Gates has been racking up daily fines since July 18 after months of warnings for placing a horse manure bin too close to a neighborhood pond, the New York Post reported Tuesday.
Jenny Craig, meanwhile, is still trying to sell her $40 million oceanfront home in Del Mar, which she's owned for about 30 years.
Related on Yahoo Homes:
• Bill Gates' custom-built main home outside Seattle
• Bill Gates pays $8.7 million in cash for Florida equestrian home
• Jenny Craig's three-kitchen home has a whopping price tag
