For sale: Dracula's Castle for a cool $85 Mil

The vampire was a complete change from the usual romantic characters I was playing, but it was a success.

Bela Lugosi

Not sure how things work out around your house, but at my house the specter of retirement looms like Bela Lugosi on a bad night. In my dreams I see the castle, hear the mad flapping of bat wings, and watch as the dangling bat (strings attached) poofs into the visage of Lugosi, the first and truest Dracula. At least he is to me.

Back in those days, when the old black and whites made it to the TV screen, I was enamored. It was so real in its obvious un-reality. Sure, on the face of it you know it’s a movie, but in a child’s mind it is nothing short of today’s reality TV.

Hey, even the original Godzilla put the fear into me. One night while washing dishes with my older sister, Grace, we talked about Godzilla. That was in the days before we knew that a T-Rex didn’t walk up right, but he still had my attention back then. I was concerned that the monster might chomp right through the window over our sink to get me, but she assured me that the tip of his tail wouldn’t even fit in the window. Thank God for that assurance, because that’s when I knew I was really safe. Besides, my sister, who was older and bigger than me then, probably presented a more tasteful morsel.

Anyway, back to Dracula.

Apparently, the real estate market in Romania isn’t doing so hot either. With the downfall of communism in the country, Dracula’s iconic castle—and it is the real deal of a castle make no mistake, reverted to its original owners, the family of British Queen Victoria. The three siblings are all in their ‘70s and do not have the funds to support the fixer-upper. So they put it on the market. They offered it to the Romania government for a cool $85 million, but apparently the stakes were too high for the country.

To say there is history in this chateau would be an understatement. What Vlad “The Impaler” Tepes of the house Draculesti did to people along the driveway would put Daenerys Targaryen’s handling of the merchants in Meereen of the Game of Thrones to shame. For those who do not watch the show she had 130-odd “merchants” crucified for crucifying the same number of slave children as a warning for her and her army to stay away from their city. Rather Draconian when you think about it.

Anyway, for the mere trifle of $85 million one could open the best little castle in Romania. Just think all you would need to add is a few bathrooms—it has none right now or at least install a row of Vampiric port-a-potties. I mean, who wouldn’t want to tour the castle, spend a night snoozing in one of the keeps, or perhaps even run into the visage of old Bela. With today’s special effects technology it could be sort of a fun house don’t you think? On the other hand, maybe the place is rife with ghosts and we won’t need any help.

Word is the castle already turns a “pretty profit.” But of course, that doesn’t include the overhead of actually having to purchase the property and make repairs and enhancements. But if one were to do it, I mean shell out the $85 million, just imagine the fun you could have lining the streets with empty impaling posts and using them to carry power lines, cable TV, and an Internet connection?