A House With Two Sets of Stairs

The house my mother was born in was abandoned by her family in the late 1940's. On a few occasions, when I was a child, my mother and her parents would take me along to visit the old house. I don't remember much about the house other than it was huge and seemed very beautiful to me. But the most amazing thing to me was that it had two - yes two - sets of stair cases! There was one set on each side of the house. The way the staircases were situated did not make them "a front and a back" staircase. In later years, I learned that most homes that had two sets of stairs would have a front staircase and a back staircase, and that usually one set was for the servants. That wasn't the case with my grandparents, as they had no servants. As a child, I asked my mother why the house was built like that. She didn't really know why. I don't know what it was about those stairs, but they absolutely fascinated me. I thought my Mom was so lucky to have lived in a home that had such a wonderful feature. I wondered why my grandparents had built their house like that. Was it something they dreamed of? Did it remind my Grandmother of her childhood home in France? Why didn't I ever ask my Grandmother why she and Grandpa had built their house this way? I couldn't imagine why anyone would abandon such a grandiose house. In later years, I noticed that many television families had two sets of stairs: The Cosby Show, Full House and more recently, According to Jim. I wonder if the writers on those television shows felt the same way as I did about those double sets of stairs, and I wonder where they fell in love with them? Imagining how special and how magical it would be to grow up in a beautiful old house with two sets of stairs . . . it's a good thing!