Fresh Blood Needed at Dracula's $80m Castle:
Property said to be Inspiration for vampire's Home in Bram Stoker's Book Put on the Market
NEW: Count Dracula's Transylvanian castle has been put on the market by its Romanian Archduke owner - with a reported asking price of at least £47 million.
- The castle made famous by Bram Stoker receives 560,000 visitors a years
- The sale is being handled by a firm of New York lawyers who say the owners are open to a 'reasonable offer'
- The owners have told the Romanian government they can buy the castle for £47 million
Count Dracula’s Transylvanian castle has been put on the market by its Romanian Archduke owner - with a reported asking price of at least £47 million.
Hilltop fortress Bran Castle is the Eastern European country’s biggest tourist attraction and attracts 560,000 visitors annually.
Mark Meyer, of Herzfeld and Rubin, a New York law firm handling the sale, said: ‘If someone comes in with a reasonable offer, we will look at who they are, what they are proposing, and will seriously entertain the idea.’
Bran Castle, Transylvania in Romania which was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula
Previous owners of the castle, which dates back to 1211, range from Saxons to Hungarians and Teutonic knights.
Bloodsucking vampire Count Dracula may be purely fictional but he has been linked to the area as fearsome sadistic ruler Vlad ‘The Impaler’ Tepes operated nearby in the 15th century, and on whom the legend of Dracula was inspired.
British actor Christopher Lee, right, is often regarded as the best on-screen Dracula
Bram Stoker is believed to have based his description of Dracula’s castle as ‘. . . on the very edge of a terrific precipice . . . with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm [with] silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests’ on that of Bran.
In the days of Romania’s Habsburg royal family, Bran Castle was given to Queen Marie, granddaughter of Britain’s Queen Victoria. When she died, in 1938, she bequeathed the castle to her daughter Princess Ileana.
But after the Communists came to power in 1948, the family was given 24 hours to leave the country.
After the fall of the iron curtain, Bran Castle was restored to them - and Ileana’s son Dominic and daughters Maria Magdalena and Elizabeth have been running it ever since.
All three children are now in their 70s and want a new owner to continue their ambitious vision for the site’s future.
They are understood to have offered the Romanian government the chance to buy it for £47 million but are seeking alternative offers.
Mr Meyer said: ‘Archduke Dominic and his family care very much for the castle, and it’s in far better shape now than it was when run by the government.
‘The aim, though, is to take the whole thing a stage further and make Bran the kind of place people will stay for two or three days.’
He said that there is land for a small hotel, adding: ‘We’re also installing a glass elevator that will lead to a tunnel in the mountain, with a light show featuring Dracula and the whole history of the place.’
