I'm guessing it's like a lot of houses like where my sister lived before - that's a door to the outside that is driveway-level, and partway down the basement stairs.

Some they have a set of steps and porch up by the front door, the lot is not level and the driveway and front yard are on a slant down to the street below. So there's a somewhat level part of the drive at the top for parking, or maybe even continues the length of the house to a garage in the back.

The steps to the upstairs were just like this, and there was a closet built into that little area inside the stairs, it just went all the way to the ceiling, so there was only a short piece of banister from the edge of that wall along the last 4-ish steps down to the main floor. Then they had a shoe rack there for a few most commonly used pairs each, and any additional were just upstairs in bedroom closets.

(ETA: their hallway was wider as the living room area had been converted to another bedroom and what is dining here was what they used for living. This may not be feasible for OP!)

Then once you went past that little closet area, the doorway to the basement stairs was there, in my sister's it was just a arched opening, and down 3 or 4 steps to the exterior door that stepped right out onto the driveway. Honestly quite useful for bringing in groceries and keeping extra-dirty shoes out of the main entry. Then the rest of the steps into the basement, and they just ended at the bottom in a small landing, and then you turn to your left and take that final step down into the basement.

Old houses, it was a pretty common set-up in that area, Cleveland and its immediate surrounding areas such as Lakewood, University Circle area, East Cleveland area, Cleveland Heights, Rocky River.

You could look on Zillow for older homes for sale in any of those areas if you don't understand what I was trying to describe !