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- Saureel Vineyards spans 117 acres near Placerville and is listed for $9 million.
- The estate includes a main house, three more residences, a vineyard and lake.
- Its event venue hosts about 20 to 28 weddings, fundraisers and parties yearly.
At Saureel Vineyards, a wedding ceremony can unfold beside a private lake, horses can train inside a 21,600-square-foot arena and a formal dinner party can spill from a French Country-style mansion toward vineyards and Sierra foothill views.
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It is an estate built for spectacle, but also for daily life. The property contains multiple homes, working agricultural infrastructure and enough room for generations of family and guests to gather or live. Now, the 117-acre property at 1100 Cold Springs Road near Placerville — the Sierra foothill town 40 miles east of Sacramento — is listed for $9 million.
Saureel comprises a 7,814-square-foot main house with four bedrooms and six bathrooms, three additional residences, an established vineyard in the El Dorado American Viticultural Area, event facilities, a professionally built equestrian complex and a private nine-acre lake.
Properties that combine this much land and flexibility are rare in California luxury real estate. Even fewer are already equipped to function turnkey as a private family compound, horse facility, grape plantation and diverse income-producing operation with on-site rental homes and a full wedding venue.
“Some estates are built. Others are created over generations,” the property website says.
The sprawling estate was previously owned and developed by builder Kenneth Hill, who was also a prominent owner and breeder of National Cutting Horse Association Hall of Fame champions. The home and equestrian facilities at Saureel were designed around that legacy, with a level of construction and detail intended for serious horse operations as well as for high-end residential living.
Estate spans 117 acres
Listing agent Andrea Lembach of Lembach Group at Keller Williams Realty has toured equestrian facilities around the country and seen her fair share of equestrian facilities. She comes from a rodeo family, with a daughter in college rodeo and relatives who own prominent cutting horses. No other horse property has stood out to her like this one, she said.
“This is the most impressive equestrian facility I’ve ever seen,” Lembach said. “I have seen facilities all over the country. This is the best. It is so well laid out, which you don’t find very often. Oftentimes, these facilities are somebody puts up a barn, and then they put up an arena, and then they put up the hay storage, and everything is piecemealed together. This one was definitely designed specifically for generations to be cutting, and it shows that.”
And then there’s the beautifully constructed mansion.
“You add the wedding venue, you add the vineyards, you add those opportunities up, and it just it can’t be beat,” Lembach added.
Saureel Vineyards owner Tim Sauer, who ran a communications contracting firm and maintained networks for AT&T and Verizon, has put his own stamp on the amazing property.
After buying the property for about $3.8 million in 2015, according to public records, he refined portions of the estate, added the grape vineyards and constructed the wedding facility.
The main residence was built with entertaining in mind but retains the feel of a private country home. Hill’s attention to detail is visible throughout the home, Sauer said.
7,000-square-foot main house
“It’s beautiful, amazing, but it’s very well done by everybody’s measure because it was for built for him, and he was a home builder,” Sauer said about Hill. “There’s a lot of beautiful features in this home that you don’t get in every home.”
Walls of windows frame views of the lake, vineyards, pastures and foothills. The great room with an upper gallery has soaring timber ceilings.
“Matter of fact, all of that up there, there are no nails,” Sauer said about the timber construction.
The home includes an attached guest house with its own entrance and kitchen, a temperature-controlled wine cellar, a six-car garage and a fitness room.
The kitchen includes two islands, two sinks, a built-in refrigerator, a chef’s pantry, a warming drawer, double ovens and a pot filler above the stove.
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The home’s formal dining room features a chandelier and views across the property. Doors can open toward spacious outdoor living areas, allowing dinner parties to flow into the landscape. There’s a location overlooking the rolling hills, oak woodlands and canyons that would make an ideal spot for an infinity pool for a new owner.
Great views in primary suite
The primary suite looks toward wooded foothills and includes two closets, one with a laundry area.
Sauer points out another special detail of the main home — the roof. Its high-end, old-world appearance mimics a slate tile roof but is made from modern materials.
“It’s rubber, but looks like tile,” he said. “It’s made out of tires.”
The property’s scale provides privacy that would be difficult to replicate today near a major California city.
Beyond the main home, the estate includes a restored, 3,300-square-foot residence built around 1906 and rebuilt in 1990, plus a lake house near the water and a separate residence overlooking the vineyard. The homes accommodate extended family, guests, caretakers, honeymooning couples and VRBO vacation renters.
The equestrian facilities are the centerpiece of the property’s working infrastructure. They include the covered arena, a 7,560-square-foot show barn, a mare motel with large stalls for when horses are pregnant, a feed barn, an outdoor arena and more than 20,000 linear feet of steel pipe fencing.
The covered arena has retractable side doors that can create either a fully enclosed riding environment or an open-air arena overlooking the lake.
“Whether your vision is training, competition, breeding, or simply enjoying horses at home, the infrastructure is already in place,” Lembach said.
The vineyard adds another agricultural dimension. The property website identifies plantings of Malbec, Mourvèdre, Petit Manseng, sauvignon blanc and Syrah growing in decomposed granite and volcanic soils at an elevation of about 1,600 feet.
Sauer said he sells grapes rather than producing wine under his own label. The home’s temperature-controlled wine cellar can hold thousands of bottles.
The estate’s private lake anchors its event business. A lakeside lawn serves as a ceremony area, while a separate building can host wedding receptions and other gatherings. The lake house is often used for the wedding party to get ready, or for newlyweds to stay.
Two dozen events per year
The property hosts 20 to 28 events a year, according to Sauer, including weddings, fundraisers and private celebrations. The event venue also has been used for corporate retreats, private parties and outdoor concerts. Sauer said ticketed concerts were once held on the property, with a stage and tent set up near the lake.
The estate’s operations are designed to continue without requiring an owner to manage every detail personally. Sauer said a wedding coordinator oversees events, two full-time employees maintain the property and a vineyard company handles agricultural work. Equipment is included with the sale, he said.
Sauer said the property’s income has covered operating expenses in recent years.
After spending the past several years living in Mexico, Sauer said he is selling because he no longer spends enough time at Saureel.
“This is amazing, but not being here is not the purpose I bought it for,” he said. “It should be in somebody’s hands who wants to spend time.”
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