Well, no neat stories, but a little bit of truth.

Closets were indeed sometimes taxed--as rooms. Your tax was determined by
the number of rooms in your house. There were also additional taxes for
certain luxury items such as mirrors and chandeliers. Whether closets were
counted as rooms or not, or taxed or not, varied by locality.

Mainly, old houses lack closets simply because the idea hadn't caught on
yet. People used furniture for storage (chests, wardrobes, etc.). The
pantries, buttries and other walk-in service areas of large old houses
gradually evolved into the closets for personal storage use, but not really
until the turn of this century.

Christen Runge
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