Little did he know he was also leaving them with a planning battle they say has cost them $1 million and a great deal of ''heartache''.
Gill Lucas, of Wanaka, is Mr Minty's daughter.
For 15 years, she and her brothers - the Sharpridge Trust - have been fighting the Upper Clutha Environmental Society through the planning process, trying to get building platforms on their land.
In 1999, they tried to get six - one for each title.
Eventually, in 2011, they succeeded in getting two platforms through the consent process and are now applying for a third.
Public submissions on their resource application to the Queenstown Lakes District Council close on Thursday. Speaking to the Otago Daily Times, Mrs Lucas said the society was not playing fair, and its advertisement in a Wanaka publication was ''factually incorrect and misleading''.
''It boiled my blood when I saw that. I thought how could you do that? That's just the lowest of the low.''
The advertisement, calling for the public to submit against the Sharpridge proposal, describes the trust's application as ''yet another house near Damper Bay''.
A 2011 application to build six houses at Damper Bay caused an uproar in Wanaka and was rejected by two independent commissioners.
Environment society member John Wellington told the ODT the society was merely raising awareness of the consent application.
Mr Wellington said there was nothing personal in what the society was doing.
''All we are trying to do is raise awareness of further development on the western shore ... that most Wanaka people don't want to see developed.''
Mrs Lucas says she believes it is wrong for the Environmental Society to link Sharpridge's application to the failed Damper Bay proposal, which was on neighbouring land.
''They've tried to trick people,'' Mrs Lucas said.
''They've been very clever the way they have done it.''
Mrs Lucas said the photo used in the advertisement puts Sharpridge's building platform ''on the top of a hill''.
''It's actually down in a little bit of a gully. It's hidden.''
Mrs Lucas says their proposed platform is out of sight of the lakeshore Millennium Track, which crosses their land, but is visible from the lake and from Mt Roy and Mt Iron.
Mrs Lucas said she and her brothers were ''not people who wanted to cause a fuss'' but the society had made their application into ''a real song and dance''.
Mr Minty bought the land in 1979 and Mrs Lucas said he would be ''rolling in his grave'' over the trouble his children were having.
''We've had nothing but heartache. It's been awful.
''I wouldn't want to put anyone through what we have been through. But we've kept going. We're not ones to give up.''
Mr Wellington said it was ''hard to describe'' where the new building platform was in relation to landmarks in the area.
''It certainly wasn't our deliberate intention to try to link it to the proposal at Damper Bay. She's reading into that way more than anyone had thought of.''
He believed the house would be visible from Damper Bay.
The star used in the advertisement to mark the location of the proposed platform was ''as close as possible'' to the site, he said.
''It's not a deliberate attempt to put it somewhere where it isn't.''
Mrs Lucas and her mother live in Wanaka and her brothers live near Otautau. Mrs Lucas looks after the property and considers it uneconomical as a farm, and said that had been made worse by the Millennium Track.
''I think the worst of it is, my father gave them permission to put that bloody Millennium Track through, thinking it would be so nice for other people to be able to walk along there. It's just backfired on us.''
Mrs Lucas believed because of the track, more people had a right to object to what she and her brothers wanted to do with their property.
The track also meant they had to remove stud cattle for safety reasons.
Mrs Lucas has yet to be informed of when Sharpridge's resource consent application will be heard.
