Craig Gore’s saddleback farm near Canungra sells for Gold Coast family for $8m

It was meant to be a property dream but it turned into a nightmare for a Gold Coast fraudster who remains behind bars. Now it has finally changed hands. Here’s what it sold for.

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SADDLEBACK, a farm on a hilltop plateau near Canungra on which dreams turned into nightmares for entrepreneurial father and son Mike and Craig Gore, has sold at auction for $8 million.

A Gold Coast family on Friday bought the 394ha Witheren property at an auction at which bidding started at $3.15 million.

It was sold by Saddleback Pastoral, a company linked to Queensland pastoralist the late Sid Faithfull when it was bought for $3.33 million in 2012.

The company has used the Toe Holt Rd land, which is 550 metres above sea level, for cattle grazing.

Saddleback Farm.

Ray White Rural’s Peter Douglas said the new owners intended to use the property for the same purpose – to run cattle.

Mr Douglas, who marketed Saddleback with colleague Rob Wildermuth, said 16 potential buyers registered for yesterday’s auction.

Saddleback came into the limelight in the late 80s when it was part of a 1000ha holding bought by the man who started Sanctuary Cove, the late Mike Cove.

He gained approval for a Cove-style resort with two 18-hole golf courses, a resort hotel and 114 villas but later lost the property to receivers.

Son Craig, who is serving a jail sentence for fraud, bought it for $3.5 million in 2003 and unveiled plans for 720 homes and villas surrounding a Tom Weiskopf designed golf course.

Receivers took control of Saddleback during the GFC and sold it to the Faithfull company.

PREVIOUSLY: HOW GORE’S PROPERTY DREAM BECAME A NIGHTMARE

FRAUDSTER Craig Gore, biding a couple of years or more in jail, could well dwell on what might have been when a farm in Toe Holt Rd, Witheren, goes under the hammer in March.

The auction also might stir some memories for Tony Cochrane, former V8 Supercar supremo and chairman of the Gold Coast Suns.

The farm, Saddleback, occupies a hilltop plateau near Canungra that carried international resort dreams for Craig and late dad Mike, the man who in the 80s embarked upon Sanctuary Cove.

Their ‘dreams’ were many years apart and both turned into receiver-induced nightmares.

The 394ha property, which sits 550 metres above sea level, these days purely is a cattle property.

Former rich lister and property developer Craig Gore (right wearing hat).

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It’s likely to stay that way -- unless an entrepreneur with Gore-like ambitions steps up to the plate at the latest auction.

Company Saddleback Pastoral, which has owned the property since 2012, is dismounting.

The property was part of a near 1000ha holding assembled by the colourful Mike Gore in the late 80s.

The former car dealer unveiled an ambition to build a Sanctuary Cove-style resort and gained an approval for two 18-hole golf courses, a resort hotel and 114 villas.

He also set out to become a cattle-stud owner and spent tens of thousands of dollars on a prize bull.

Unfortunately, the uninsured bull could not perform its required duties – it broke its pizzle soon after arriving at Saddleback.

Mike later ditched the resort plan and tried to sell out – full-page adverts implored investors to rescue him – ‘I’ve got divorce lawyers and bankers all over me’.

A $9 million auction bid failed to buy the property, receivers moved in and sold off the lower portions.

Tony Bawden, a founder of housing company Villa World, bought the balance, sold off some titles, and kept the plateau’s 394ha.

The late businessman Mike Gore had international resort dreams for Saddleback Farm.

Developer and former V8 supercar team owner Craig Gore, in what was a family buy-back-the-farm move, paid $3.5 million for Saddleback in 2003.

Two years later a $800 million Gore-Cochrane plan for the property was unveiled, one that included a Tom Weiskopf golf course ringed by 720 homes and villas.

Funder City Pacific put the Gore businesses into receivership in 2009 and three years later the plateau was sold for $3.3 million to Queensland grazier the late Sid Faithfull’s Saddleback Pastoral for $3.3 million.

Cattle on the property, some of them perhaps a legacy of the Bawden droughtmaster stud, aren’t part of this month’s auction package but apparently could be offered to any successful bidder.

Tony Cochrane planned an $800 million development with Craig Gore at Saddleback Farm.

One of the men taking Saddleback to auction, Ray White Rural’s Peter Douglas, has been down the track before – twice.

He was one of the men appointed by receivers to sell it in 2003 and again in 2012.

The latest ‘appointment’ sees him working alongside a long-time colleague, Rob Wildermuth – they started their working careers together as mail boys for Elders in Brisbane.

Meanwhile, Craig Gore won’t be watching the Saddleback auction.

Queensland Correction Services says no prisoners have internet access.