Jaunted

Romania Travel

New York Is Selling Dracula's Castle

July 3, 2007 at 3:19 PM | 2 Comments

Remember last year, when New Yorker Dominic Habsburg was celebrating getting the deed for Dracula's haunt? Well, fast forward a year and the castle is going back on the market.

If you're shopping for a $135 million house, you may have spotted a listing over the weekend for the 17-bedroom Bran Castle. The Romanian fortress is better known as Dracula's lair because its former inhabitant, Prince Vlad the Impaler, inspired Bram Stoker's vampire. It is situated on the border between the towns of Transylvania and Wallachia, on Highway 73.

The castle was put up for sale by its ancestral owners, the Habsburgs, to whom it was returned in 2006. Owner Archduke Dominic Habsburg must really want the place off his hands -- he offered to sell it to the state of Transylvania last year, but they turned down his bargain price of $80 million.

We hear Kiefer Sutherland is in the neighborhood. Maybe he should settle down in the 13th-century place -- it would make a great remote torture location for Jack Bauer, plus he'd have room for Chloe 'n' the gang.

Related Stories:
· Bucharest Travel [Jaunted]
· Hotels in Romania [HotelChatter]

[Photo: gus.k]

Castles

New Yorker Takes Back Dracula's Castle

May 24, 2006 at 10:42 AM | 0 Comments

Over 60 years ago the Dracula Castle was seized by communists, and yesterday, the Romanian government announced they would hand it over to its former owner, a New Yorker.

Dominic van Hapsburg, (yeah, those Hapsburgs) a New York architect who inherited the pop tourist attraction way back when, will resume ownership and will not be allowed to make any changes to the castle for the next three years.

So for the time being, peasants can keep selling Dracula sweaters, hand-knitted from the thick wool of local sheep, and Vampire wine at the gates of Bran Castle.

First Rocky beats Drago, then the Berlin Wall comes down, now a New Yorker owns the Dracula Castle--ttthhheeee Yankees win.

[image via mgleaves/Flickr]

Related Stories:
· Dracula caslte returns to bloodline [CNN]
· Bran Castle [Wikipedia]