photo by Susan Griffith

The view from Keely and Jon Wright's house is more than breathtaking. It's the reason they situated the house where they did on the five-acre property that sits high on a hill of Cat Mountain and stretches down to RM 2222.

The 5,904-square-foot, four-bedroom house at 4813 Belvedere St., No. 2, is on the market for $1,875,000.

The Wrights completed the house in early 2001. That May, Jon Wright, an executive at Dell Inc., where he'd been since 1989, was laid off. Today he owns Advanced Surfacing Technology, a decorative concrete company that does residential and commercial work including the floors of Second Street store Shiki and restaurant Leaf. Keely Wright works for IBM Corp. as a project manager.

The view doesn't appear at first from the paver driveway, but from the foyer, the view presents itself in a wall of windows looking out from the living room onto the patio, down to the pool and cabana ... all the way to the Pennybacker Bridge below.

The house enjoys the view from the patio to the screened dining area to the upstairs grand balcony. For outdoor entertaining, the pool features a swim-up bar by the cabana, which has a half-bathroom and an outdoor shower. The hot tub offers the sound of water trickling into the pool. Every Fourth of July the Wrights host a party here to watch the fireworks from Austin Country Club below.

Inside, the living areas are comfortable and practical. Jon Wright calls the kitchen "paradise." He does most of the cooking and, with the well-thought-out granite-countered prep space, he can enjoy the island range, vegetable sink and double oven with convection option.

For eating and drinking, the house has a bar on each floor, the swim-up bar outside, a formal dining room, a breakfast nook and the screened-in porch.

A guest bedroom with a walk-in closet and full bathroom and a massive study with built-in wraparound desk complete the first floor.

Upstairs, two more bedrooms each have a walk-in closet and full bath. A large game room with access to the balcony separates the bedroom wing from the master bedroom wing.

The master suite includes a reading nook with access to the balcony, a walk-in closet that is almost as large as one of the other bedrooms and has built-in drawers, and a master bathroom with gray-green marble counters, a large tub and shower with a bench. Both the closet and the bathroom have hidden access to the laundry chute to the first floor.

Keely Wright says she will miss waking up to the view.

"In the winter, it's all pinks and grays," Keely Wright says. "You get this wonderful look of the fog hovering over Lake Austin."

A third wing on the second floor offers a flexible room that could be a media room, another bedroom or a nanny's room.

Listing agent Susan Griffith of Amelia Bullock Realtors notes how well this house is planned for entertaining. There's a half-bathroom on every floor and one at the pool.

"The potential buyer is a family that likes to entertain," Griffith says. "It's such a well-planned family home."

And the view isn't bad, either.