Fast forward 10 months and he and his partner, James Boussy, are happily ensconced in the historic mansion, believed to be the largest all-timber single-storeyed house in New Zealand.
The Americans are only the fifth owners of the landmark Towey St home, which has a category 1 Historic Places Trust classification, since 1889.
Mr Glucksman forged a career in international management consulting and health care, living and working in more than 40 countries.
He is also an accomplished amateur chef, food critic and writer and is fluent in Russian and Chinese.
Mr Boussy, a dentist who practised in the US state of Virginia for 15 years before moving his practice to Beijing, is also a skilled baker, gardener and home renovator.
The pair, who lived in China for four years, had previously talked about moving to "some beautiful part of the world" where they could operate a restaurant-inn and lead the lifestyle they always wanted.
They held lots of dinner parties and people liked Mr Glucksman's food - food and wine is his passion - and thought it was his calling.
The idea kept cropping up as the years passed, and while travelling in South Africa last year, they nearly bought a property. That did not work out, but they kept the notion of moving.
Mr Glucksman suggested New Zealand, having only ever once been to Auckland. Mr Boussy had never been to the country.
They started looking at websites, talking to friends and planning a trip in February to look at about 30 properties Mr Boussy had found online.
It was when they received an email from a real estate agent, just before Christmas last year, that they were both captivated with luxury lodge Pen-y-bryn.
In January, they flew to New Zealand for four nights and drove from Dunedin to Oamaru, a drive Mr Glucksman described as "just stupendous".
They loved the countryside and while there were parts of China that were beautiful, the same could not be said of Beijing. In four years of living in the city, they never saw the "real" sky or a star, Mr Boussy said.
When they got to the house, they thought it was "just stunning" and exactly what they were looking for.
They wanted a property in which they could provide fine dining and "really have a sort of high class establishment", Mr Glucksman said.
They also looked around Oamaru and "loved the town" and discovering a cheese factory was an unexpected bonus.
The pair returned to Beijing and waited anxiously to hear if their offer had been accepted.
They returned the next month and toured around the South Island. Oamaru resonated with them more than any other town and they had "absolutely no regrets" about their decision.
At that stage, there was still red tape to go through as they had to obtain their visas and the sale of the property had to be approved by the Overseas Investment Office.
As soon as their visas were approved on May 25, they resigned from their jobs and once they announced they were leaving China, bound for New Zealand, "our spirits just went through the roof", Mr Glucksman said.
They arrived in early August and had spent a week with former owners Roy and Bernice Vannini as they made the transition to their new home.
Pen-y-bryn was "such a fixture in the community" and they wanted local people to be able to use it.
"To have it sort of isolated seems just wrong," Mr Glucksman said.
People were welcome to book for dinner, even for two, and they enjoyed putting together menus and coming up with themes.
They were not going to have an a la carte menu, preferring to change the menu monthly and reflect various international cuisines. The first month was Moroccan and this month is Italian.
Mr Glucksman is a member of the Slow Food movement and is an Officier Maitre Hotelier in the Confrerie de la Chaine des Rotisseurs, the Paris-based gourmet society, in the bailliage of Christchurch.
The pair, who wanted to promote the Waitaki district as a visitor destination, were enjoying using local produce.
They were "absolutely besotted" with Whitestone Cheese.
"I don't miss China at all. Really, we're over the moon," Mr Glucksman said.
