The 56-year-old Oriana hotelier arrived in Orange after almost 30 years working in Hong Kong and China's most upmarket restaurants and hotels.

But his exposure to hospitality started much earlier, having grown up in his family's hotel in Norway.

"I think I started working in the kitchen when I was about five, doing something probably not very useful," he said with a laugh.

"When I was seven, I was a mini-waiter, I could barely reach up to the tables and I was paid 10 cents per guest."

Before he left to attended the prestigious Ecole Hotelière de Lausanne in Switzerland, Mr Harbitz said life revolved around the hotel and staff became family.

"That's a bit like [The Oriana], we have 35 staff here and they become your family because you spend so much time together - the biggest thing to understand is it is team work and as a leader in this industry it's about bringing the best out of the people you work with," he said.

As Norway was not yet part of the European Union, Mr Harbitz found himself unable to get a work permit in Europe and his remaining choices were to go back to Scandinavia or follow the hotel industry boom in Asia.

"I actually travelled around to 10 countries in Asia because I had never been and didn't know what it was so immediately when I got to Hong Kong, I deferred that trip - I thought this is the place for me," he said.

"There is this level of people you meet there, they're all interesting and they're all entrepreneurial, they have something special - you can mix with high court judges to bankers and lawyers and there's no strict levels of society."

During the next 30 years in Hong Kong and China, he worked in exclusive dining clubs, five-star hotels and later as general manager of Michelle Garnaut's M at the Fringe, one of the pioneers of fine dining in the city.

Then in 1992, he met his partner, Ted Marr, and until 2016 they worked together on the annual Bela Vista Balls in Macau and five to 15-day China Coast Ball luxury travel programs hosted all over the world.

Mr Marr grew up in Wilcannia and lulled by the attraction of clean air and the ease of finding a parking space, the pair moved into a farmhouse outside Orange.

When the Oriana came up for sale, Mr Harbitz was under no illusion of the amount of work it would take.

"Ted was a bit more, 'this'll be great, let's do it'," he said.

They took over in early 2017, with friends lending their skills and the couple's art collection setting the tone for the restaurant and bar areas.

The collection reflected their travels, while Mr Harbitz also preserved his family's collection of paintings dating back to the 1600s, which were hidden from the Nazis and recovered after World War II.

When Mr Marr died from cancer in August, Mr Harbitz said the loss had a significant impact.

"What we set up together, of course I will continue that and everywhere you turn there's something about Ted and that's very comforting," he said.