Former Mel Gibson Springbank Angus cattle retreat listed
The former Victorian rural beef cattle retreat of actor Mel Gibson has been listed for sale.
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Springbank, a 390-hectare farm in the Kiewa Valley near Albury/Wodonga with views of the Australian Alps, was bought by Mel Gibson in the late 1980s as a retreat to run Angus cattle.
A four-title holding was sold in 2004 by Gibson for $1.825 million to the current vendor, Albert Park racehorse owner David Trevethan and wife, Christine, who have $5.5 million-plus hopes for the Gundowring farm.
It's been marketed as recreated since it was Mad Max's playground, with the original homestead replaced by a four-bedroom, four-bathroom homestead with designer kitchen, library, formal lounge and dining rooms, and a glass-roofed conservatory. The 620-square-metre stone home was designed by Peter Barton and features ironbark hardwood floors, rosewood doors, and wide, grey box verandas.
The barn has been converted into an entertainment area with open fireplace and a bar, as well as self-contained accommodation with a bedroom with ensuite.
The property, which has been used to run cattle and train horses, also offers cattle yards, machinery sheds, paddocks and 17 dams.
Offers are due with Peter Hawkins of Pat Rice & Hawkins by November 23.
Last year a 60-hectare holding sold by Gibson to Trevethan was listed for sale with a $750,000 asking price.
Involved in the racing industry as an owner and breeder for almost 40 years, David Trevethan's notable success came from part ownership of Better Loosen Up, who went on to win the Cox Plate and the Japan Cup.
At one staged Gibson owned two ranches Beartooth Ranch near Columbus, Montana, and his home ranch in Victoria.
The two beef operations, which comprised Beartooth International, shared a common seedstock genetic base as well as marketing strategies.
The 20,000- acre (8,094-hectare) Montana ranch, named after the Beartooth Mountain range bordering it on the west, ran 1,200 cows.
“I preferred the natural existence and open space of a ranch over claustrophobic city life,” Gibson once said, so he went looking for something that would "soothe me between making films".
Springbank internal pictures on page 2
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After he and his family found the perfect remedy in north-east Victoria, Gibson realised that the land was no good unless he put something on it.
He soon put together a small commercial beef herd.
“Basically, I started from scratch,” Gibson told The Angus Journal in 1991.
“I ended up with everyone else’s culled cows and made lots of mistakes during those first few years.”
Gibson tended the cow herd, dug post holes, built fences and drove a tractor but all the time struggled to make it work.
Then one day a neighbour’s bull got through a downed fence and visited Gibson’s cow herd, and the next spring Gibson discovered a couple of nice calves on the ground that he knew weren’t sired by his “average” bull.
His neighboring cattleman advised that his bull’s genetics traced back to the United States and a property called Beartooth Ranch, which at that time raised Polled Herefords.
Then in 1988, while making a film in the United States, he went to Montana to see Beartooth Ranch firsthand.
Gibson, his then wife, Robyn, and their six children lived in the Kiewa Valley during the late 1980s, and he became a well-liked identity in the Tangambalanga area.
For much of its ownership the property was home to his father, Hutton Gibson, who lived a mud brick home on the holding that Mel Gibson bought for $237,500.
Beartooth in Montana was sold in 2005 to the neighbours.
