Unreal Estate: When Only a Scullery Will Do

When 26 West 76th Street came on the market with Corcoran late last year, The Times sniffed that its $25 million tag was 60 percent more expensive than the priciest townhouse ever sold on the Upper West Side. But how could anyone complain when the townhouse’s floor plan has so much gargantuan, Dickensian grandeur?

There isn’t just a chef’s kitchen (with an adjoining family room facing the south garden); there’s a scullery (“a room for cleaning and storing dishes and cooking utensils and for doing messy kitchen work,” says Webster’s), plus a fifth-floor kitchen and a “serving kitchen” on the parlor floor, too.

The basement alone has a 19-foot gym, a 20.5-foot playroom, the townhouse’s second laundry area, and a wine cellar that holds over 1,900 bottles. Better yet, the rooftop (not shown) has two hefty terraces and a 467-square-foot solarium—but not a room for sleds, which is on the first floor. — Max Abelson

Not only does the dining room have its own walk-in closet, but there are three sets of floor-to-ceiling French doors overlooking the 25-foot-long south garden.

A living room isn’t a living room without a gas fireplace and a wet bar.

There’s a scullery in Charles Dickens’ “Tom Tiddler’s Ground,” except it’s sooty and dark and has rats. This one’s between the “sophisticated sweeping staircase” and the chef’s kitchen.

It’s convenient that there’s space dedicated to “bicycles/sleds,” just in case the coat room and mudroom aren’t enough.

Chrysler vice chairman James E. Press has a 1,000-bottle cellar in his $15.7 million Upper East Side house. How quaintly pedestrian! This one is nearly twice the size.

The new elevator means you can go down from the bedrooms to the 19-foot-long gym without breaking a sweat.

Isn’t the marble bathroom’s tub awfully close to that window?

Sadly, the home office seems to be smaller than the full-floor master bedroom suite’s two walk-in closets, which are both smaller than the 22-foot-long fitted dressing room.

The laundry room in the basement seems to have two pairs of washers and driers, but this one isn’t bad, either.

This bedroom and one upstairs both have terraces. Sadly, the master bedroom only has a bay window, but there’s a fireplace to make up for it.

The Corcoran listing distinguishes between the garden level’s “chef’s kitchen,” the parlor floor’s “butler kitchen” (or “serving kitchen”) and this “convenience kitchen.” It’s not clear what the difference is, but they all sound nice.

Considering that all the other bedrooms have at least one walk-in closet, the clothes space for these two bedrooms is relatively measly—which means they’re probably maid’s rooms.