This house was inspired by some Dutch buildings. I could only make it 6 floors high, plus basement, even with cheats, but for Sims 2 it's quite impressive.
Street View
Roofspace
Basement
The structure of the house.
There are staircases all the way up and down, and a lift most of the way up.
Here you can see (in brown) both lift and chimney. Fireplaces are on the lower floors only, because hot air rises - traditionally servants would occupy tiny bedrooms on the upper floor and might have had fireplaces, but in a Sims build the fire risk is too great.
Larger rooms as you move down the house, with fireplaces as well as lift and stairs.
You could certainly add side windows - I have not because I originally imagined these as town houses, moved closer together with Mootilda's LotAdjuster. However, this might lead to a very large number of Sims living very close together, so I would only do this on a high-end machine.
Made with all EPs and SPs installed. The only cheat I used was the sethighestallowedlevel 10.
This house costs your Sims §106,761 completely unfurnished. Rooms can clearly be divided into smaller ones for bathrooms, etc.
It's on a 2x4 lot.
Sita April 2, 2018