However, the company is appealing the decision.
NZ Auto Parts Ltd applied to the Dunedin City Council for a certificate of compliance to store vehicles in "various" states or conditions up to three cars high at the rear of the site, which once hosted animal testing laboratories, in Factory Rd.
The 4.2ha property, known as Invermay, is listed as "under offer" by PGG Wrightson Real Estate.
Advertised online as offering a "unique Taieri lifestyle", the homestead was built in the 1860s.
It features an array of buildings, including one 1520sq m building with about 45 rooms.
The auto parts company was seeking permission to store vehicles outdoors on the 2ha area of land at the rear of the site, and to remove car parts within existing buildings and covered areas at the site, for an internet-based car parts sales, the decision, provided by the council, said.
The proposal also included using the house on site as a residence, it said.
The council would have issued a certificate of compliance if the activity could have been carried out without a resource consent.
However, it was the council’s view that the storage of a cars outdoors was an industrial use of the land and therefore a discretionary use rather than a permitted one.
The application was declined late last month.
PGG Wrightson Real Estate agent Roger Nicolson said the property remained under offer and the decision had been appealed.
Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga’s website said Invermay had been owned by prominent early settlers on the Taieri Plain, the Gow family, until 1956, when it was acquired by the University of Otago.
