Converting single family to duplex

[Brandon Cline]

Hi all, has anyone had any success converting a single family house to a duplex?  There is a neat looking Victorian in my market that has 6 bedrooms, but needs a fair amount of work. Seems like there is close to the same amount of square footage upstairs as there is downstairs so was thinking of maybe converting each level to it's own designated unit.  The house is located in more of a commercial area with offices and just a few single family homes here and there. For those of you who have done the conversion to a two story, did you install an exterior stair case to a front entrance for the top unit?  Leave the existing front door as a common front door so upstairs tenant could use existing interior staircase and figure a way out to put a separate front door for lower unit inside the entryway somewhere?  I'm open to any and all suggestions or thoughts on this.

Headed down to city planning tomorrow to even see if I can do the conversions, but thought I'd check with you all to hear some feedback.