It is arguably Canberra's most luxurious piece of inner-city real estate, a two-storey penthouse with sweeping and unspoiled views of the parliamentary triangle.
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But ever since it was completed in 2010, unit 1601 at the Molonglo Group's NewActon South has sat vacant and uninhabited.
Until now.
The apartment's first owners this week took the keys to the 450-square-metre pad, after buying it in December 2017.
The new owners, who wished to remain anonymous and did not want to be interviewed, are understood to have spent approximately $5 million buying and fitting out the two-bedroom, four-bathroom penthouse in the past 12 months. The apartment "shell" was initially marketed for $4.4 million, but that price was dropped after it failed to attract a buyer.
It's fair to say that I won't get to do anything like this again
- Phil Ma
The penthouse includes 150 square metres of outdoor entertaining space, including a spa and winter garden. The split-level apartment is connected by a private lift, and a stairwell which sits in a skylit atrium. There's an indoor bar, a sauna and a powder room.
The upper-floor kitchen spills into the main living space, which, along with the adjacent outdoor deck, offers a sweeping vista over Lake Burley Griffin stretching from the museum to Mount Ainslie.
Before the new owners moved in on Thursday, The Canberra Times toured the penthouse with Phil Ma, whose construction career started in 2008 as a cadet working with PBS Building on the NewActon South development.
Mr Ma later started his own business, Vamos Group, but was drawn back to NewActon South by the penthouses' new owners, who were keen to tap into his knowledge and experience with the Fender Katsalidis-designed complex.
He said the handing over of the penthouse, which was the last unfinished piece in the 180-unit complex, marked a "sense of closure" on the project which launched his career.
"Driving along Parkes Way for all these years, I would look up and see the building and you know that something in the development is not finished," he said.
"Ten years later, to know that it's finished, it's pretty special. A lot of projects don't run for that length of time, so I do have a particular attachment to this building and this precinct.
"It's fair to say that I won't get to do anything like this again."
Mr Ma said the owners gave him and architect Jessica De Rome "free reign to run wild" with the design of the penthouse.
"We knew they were going to move in and stay here - it wasn't an investment property," he said.
"When the owners saw it they were really thrilled with the end result."
Mr Ma, who lists the Molonglo Group, Terry Snow and Geocon's Nick Georgalis among his inspirations, said the luxury penthouse was part of a wave of "edgy" developments which were challenging Canberra's traditionally conservative architectural style.
