He was the property developer with the Midas touch, a man who through vision and hard work built a legacy that is cemented –literally – in the city’s history.

Mr Donebus, who passed away last week aged 74, was farewelled by close to 500 people at a service in St Michael’s Cathedral on Monday.

His extraordinary rags to riches story is the stuff of legend.

With little education and no English, he left his native Italy in 1961, bound for Sydney.

He worked as a painter on the Snowy Mountains Scheme for two years and eventually found his way to Wagga in 1967.

Four years later, his property development company Damasa was born.

From humble beginnings, the company grew steadily, with Mr Donebus employing an investment formula of saving money, borrowing a bit more and developing a new property when the existing one was almost paid off.

Among his signature developments in Wagga are the cinema/bowling alley complex, the Commonwealth offices in Thompson Street and a swag of iconic Baylis Street buildings.

His influence on the city’s civic life was just as profound.

A member of Wagga Lions for 45 years, Mr Donebus was also a long-time director and life member of the Commercial Club and co-founder of the Riverina Soccer Trust.

He was a magnetic, gregarious character; a family man with a wicked sense of humour and a man that would extol the virtues of Wagga to anyone that would listen.

“He was very proud of Wagga; he always said it was the land of opportunity,” Mr Donebus’s son Daniel said. “He worked hard to integrate himself here and was very proud of the city.

“When you walked down the street with him you couldn’t walk 10 paces without him bumping into someone. A lot of people we didn’t even know were at the funeral and told us how much Dad had helped them out over the years.”

He said the secret to his father’s success was his work ethic and an uncanny ability to read market trends.

“Work was never a burden for him, he loved it so much,” Mr Donebus said.

“He was also very astute in identifying where developments would work.

“He had the ability to recognise parts of town that others had ignored.”