Winrock Grass Farm sells for $4.55 million.

Little Rock businessman Frank B. Whitbeck's Winrock Grass Farm Inc. sold last week for $4.55 million at an auction at the Pulaski County Courthouse.

Real estate investor John W. "Jay" DeHaven, president of the DeHaven Group LLC of Maumelle, won the bid after going back and forth with a representative from Metropolitan National Bank of Little Rock, which was owed $4.77 million after receiving a foreclosure order against the property.

DeHaven said he didn't know just yet what he was going to do with the more than 800 acres of undeveloped land in western Pulaski County.

DeHaven said he was attracted to the property because it is contained in one tract close to Highway 10 and, most all of, is developable.

On June 23, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge rejected Whitbeck's plea to stay the foreclosure sale while he appealed the decision.

He hoped the grass farm would be used as the centerpiece to the company's Chapter 11 reorganization.

Whitbeck believed the land was worth about $14 million and had hoped to sell or refinance it, which would have paid off Winrock's $10 million debt to creditors.

But Metropolitan Bank said the land is only worth $2.8 million. The bank has tried to take ownership of the land since 2003, but Winrock's bankruptcy had stalled the sale.

Winrock's other creditors, including Whitbeck's own Signature Life Insurance Co. of America, might be out of luck.

Signature's receiver; Arkansas Insurance Department Commissioner Julie Benafield Bowman, recently sued Whitbeck accusing him of fraud and breaching his fiduciary duties in connection with a series of loans he made from Signature Life to Winrock and his other five companies between 1999 and 2004. Bowman said in the lawsuit that loans totaling $4.5 million are in default.

"Winrock is insolvent, and there is no real prospect of satisfaction of the [Signature Life] loans from any Winrock assets," Bowman said.