It’s Free to Look: 40 Riverside Drive

This 25-room home may not have quite as many rooms as Versailles (700 and counting), but it's still a palatial find on the Upper West Side.

The 9,500-square-foot building, formerly owned by an Iranian businessman and now converted to a single-family home, is a RARE find on Riverside Drive (emphasis by the Corcoran listing). The rooms are massive, says the listing, as are the windows.

But size isn’t everything. This 19th century beauty also has original moldings, grand rotundas, and an undoubtedly weighty marble elevator. Even the ubiquitous Clarence True, who designed this and a bounty of much less stunning buildings on the Upper West Side, cannot take credit for the stunning views of the Hudson.

For $20 million, it’s less than a million dollars a room, which almost sounds like a bargain. --Laura Kusisto