Ms. Zigic met Mr. Brouwers about a decade ago when he was looking for a flat in London. Although he did not rent from her, the two became friends and eventually began dating.  About four years ago, after seeing a newspaper ad placed by Ellen Simon, a broker at Bellmarc Realty, the couple enlisted her help in their hunt for an apartment, for $1 million to $1.5 million, to use for their many trips to New York. “I was dreaming of a great view onto the skyscrapers,” Mr. Brouwers said.  At that point, properties sold quickly, and the couple didn’t have time to devote to a serious apartment hunt.  They resumed last year, when prices were falling and the euro was strong. Ms. Simon showed them some places above their price range, “and I liked those apartments, so I decided to increase my budget,” Mr. Brouwers said. “I understood that to have something like that, I needed to spend more.”  Last summer, the couple came close to buying at the Chelsea Stratus on 24th Street and the Avenue of the Americas. They considered a few places there, including a 1,575-square-foot two-bedroom two-bathroom condo for around $2.8 million, and the three-bedroom three-bath penthouses, each with more than 2,250 square feet. The penthouses, for around $4.5 million, were at the very top of their budget.  The lobby, which Ms. Zigic said was dark, was easy to overlook because of the endless sunlight upstairs. But they weren’t sure that they liked the neighborhood.  There were numerous retail vacancies in the area’s many new buildings, and the available shopping consisted of mundane businesses like lighting stores, said Jeffrey Rowe, Ms. Simon’s partner at Bellmarc. A messy, crowded street fair during one visit didn’t help.  The couple were also serious about the glass-and-granite Park Imperial at West 56th Street and Broadway, part office building and part condominium.  A 1,400-square-foot two-bedroom two-bath apartment there, for around $2.9 million, had three exposures, including Central Park and the Hudson River. The view, though magnificent, wasn’t apparent immediately upon entry. It was necessary to walk down the hall first. The two walked away from that apartment.  Meanwhile, they decided they wanted a bigger place, where they could spend even more time. “New York is like a muse,” said Ms. Zigic. “The more often we were coming, the more New York was going under our skin.”  She wasn’t in town when Mr. Brouwers saw the view from 45 East 89th Street. The three-bedroom three-bath condo had 1,650 square feet of space and a balcony.  He bid $3.9 million, but when he spoke about it to her, “he was having this long face,” she said. She couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t more excited.  When she visited, she saw for herself. The balcony overlooked “this green extravaganza” of Central Park, she said. But inside the building, circa 1969, the fixtures were ornate and dated, “with lots of gold and glitzy things.”  The ceiling was so low that it almost seemed Mr. Brouwers, a tall man, would bump his head. Ms. Zigic told him to “buy this apartment only if you have a plan to spend most of your time on the balcony.” They withdrew the bid.  Few modern condos on the Upper East Side have views, Ms. Simon said, because they are blocked by equally tall neighboring buildings.  This time around, “properties remained on the market for a few months, so we had the time to look for something that would suit us perfectly,” Mr. Brouwers said.  The couple then arrived at Twenty9th Park Madison on East 29th Street. Each penthouse, not yet completed, had two bedrooms, an office, three bathrooms, 13-foot ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows and a private roof terrace.  For Ms. Zigic, it was “straightaway, love on the first sight.”  Mr. Brouwers hesitated. The neighborhood wasn’t what he had hoped for.  But “I can see opportunity, and the neighborhood is getting better and better,” Ms. Zigic said. “I like this poor cousin of a very good neighborhood. It has so much potential to grow,” as evidenced by the new Gansevoort Park Hotel rising opposite their building.  They chose the east-facing penthouse specifically because they preferred the view from its roof. So they weren’t happy when they were told the penthouses would have no private roof terraces after all. The space would instead be shared by the whole building.  With private roof space out of the equation, they realized the other penthouse had a better view, with more of the Chrysler Building showing. So they negotiated to swap their apartment for its neighbor, and bought that one last winter for $4.23 million. Monthly charges and taxes are slightly less than $3,000 a month.  From inside, they are thrilled to see the Chrysler Building and three other landmarks — the Empire State Building, the Metropolitan Life Tower and the Flatiron Building. When the Empire State Building was illuminated in red, the color of much of their furniture, “I called my mom and said that even the Empire State Building is copying us,” Ms. Zigic said. (Actually, the lights were red, white and blue for the Independence Day weekend.)  “Nighttime is a permanent spectacle,” Ms. Zigic said. “It is always entertaining. Anywhere you go in the apartment, you see the skyline and something is moving, something is flying.”  Meanwhile, Mr. Brouwers, inspired by the many taxis the couple took during their apartment hunt, was working on a documentary of New York as seen through the eyes of taxi drivers. “Taxi Drivers” is to make its debut on French television in September.  Not surprisingly, the film is filled with panoramic views of the city. Though most were shot from helicopters, a few were shot from their building’s roof terrace.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page RE9 of the New York edition with the headline: Wall-to-Wall Skyline. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Pierre Brouwers and Sanja Zigic knew they wanted a penthouse with a view, but that was just their first desire.