Bill Gates Buys Jenny Craig’s 200 Acre Horse Farm For $18 Million!


Microsoft founder, and one of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates has added yet another property to his expanding list of assets. The 58-year-old recently closed a deal which gave him the ownership rights to a 229 acre horse farm in San Diego hitherto owned by weight-loss icon Jenny Craig. The deal cost Bill Gates nearly $18 million, reports the Wall Street Journal. A spokesperson for Bill Gates has confirmed that he has indeed purchased the property. In a statement, he added that “the Gates family has enjoyed visiting the San Diego area with friends and family for many years.” Another reason for the keen interest of Bill Gates in this property is the fact that his teenage daughter Jennifer is an active horse rider and jumps horses competitively.

The 229 acre property is known as Rancho Paseana and is located about 20 minutes north of San Diego. It reportedly features a three-quarter-mile racetrack, a guesthouse, an office, an olive orchard, five barns and a veterinarian’s suite. The property currently has no horses but has in the past served as a training ground for thoroughbreds. Rancho Paseana also functioned as a leisure facility for horses when they were injured and were rehabilitating following injuries. All this was, however, before Ms. Craig closed the facility down back in 2013 for financial reasons.

The WSJ report adds that at its peak, the entire 229 acre property was listed at $30 million in 2010, and more recently at $25 million. While the $18 million price that Bill Gates paid for this property might look like a bargain when compared to the historical prices this property was valued at, it is still among the highest prices that a property has fetched this year in all of San Diego County. Notably, Bill Gates also owns another home in the Del Mar Country Club in the same county. Surprisingly, the property was not listed as being up for sale when the $18 million deal with Bill Gates happened.

Bill Gates Horse farm in San Diego

According to UT San Diego, the main reason Ms. Craig took so long to sell the property is because she wanted to find a buyer who would continue using the land as a horse farm. Almost all of the offers she received were from people who wished to develop the land. With Bill Gates’ daughter having a keen interest in horse riding, it is very unlikely that he would do anything else to the property and would keep the property as is. The locals from the area too seem to be excited about the purchase as the purchase by Bill Gates would maintain the “charm and the character” of the property.

Bill Gates is the richest person in the United States — and perhaps the world — with total assets worth a little over $81 billion. According to Forbes, Gates has in the past shown keen interest in buying property and spending money on horses. In the past, Gates had leased a home for $600,000 near Palm Beach, Florida so that his daughter could be in close proximity to Wellington’s Equestrian Festival. He has also leased four elite jumping horses for $50,000 to $75,000 each for his daughter to train.

[Image Via UT San Diego/ Barry Estates]

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