Developer Barry Anstee, 60, is talking millions of dollars as he reimagines his plans for The Maltings, a collection of handsome but dilapidated heritage buildings where Tooth & Co once brewed malt in Mittagong.

They are millions he does not have. The man who paid just $590,000 for the 6.5-hectare site is bankrupt, has two WorkCover convictions for owning an unsafe worksite, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has banned him from managing corporations over his involvement in six failed companies. ASIC found that Mr Anstee allowed companies to trade while insolvent and failed to keep proper financial records.

The Maltings, now in the hands of the liquidators Worrells, was to be auctioned yesterday at the behest of Wingecarribee Shire Council over unpaid rates of more than $63,000, but at the 11th hour the money arrived and the property was withdrawn.

A small adjacent site Mr Anstee owned was auctioned yesterday for $22,600 in a sale forced by the council to get back almost $9000 in rates owed.

Others have been less successful at getting their dues from Mr Anstee's businesses. Velowing Pty Ltd, which owned a four-fifths share of the site, is among six of his companies which ASIC said owed more than $300,000 when they were wound up, unable to pay unsecured creditors more than 50 cents in the dollar. With Velowing, Mr Anstee said: "They didn't even get that." Four years ago, he was convicted of three offences relating to his failure to assist liquidators. A fire destroyed financial records kept on the site and he was unable to hand them over, Mr Anstee told the Herald.

Mr Anstee is not the first to hold expensive hopes for the three large malthouses built in the late 19th and early 20th century with three weirs and its own rail siding complete with crumbling railway platform.

Having lost the wedding reception business he ran out of the Bowral historic house, Hopewood, Mr Anstee lives on his family's financial support, he said.

Mr Anstee bought The Maltings from the developer John Palasty's company Southern Highlands Development, which was in liquidation, and sold for a fraction of the $1.5 million it had originally paid.

Developers Bill Shipton and Jose de la Vega bought the site 21 years ago for $1.33 million, hoping to create a 200-room hotel with an Orient Express link from Sydney. The Sheraton group was interested, but a slump hit and the two developers sold for $465,000 in 1994. The next owner, Swiss hotel developer Thomas Kessler of Beijing, talked of running historic trains from Sydney and Canberra to a boutique hotel, spa and wine caves and two theatres.

Is it cursed? "People say that," said Mr Anstee.

He planned a winery, small brewery, function rooms and a pub with more than four bars in malthouses where ferns now grow and graffiti writhes across the walls. He envisaged tourist accommodation, a cheese shop and an outdoor market.

"I think the scheme's viable. You have to have about $25-30 million," he said.

The property is likely to be sold to John McCann of Colliers International who passed it in at mortgagee auction a fortnight ago at $1.35 million and now reports higher offers from "very interested" parties, the agent Michael Maloney said.