The historic building has fascinated many writers and filmmakers

May 13, 2014 18:09 GMT  ·  By

The castle of the infamous Count Dracula in Transylvania, which inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 novel “Dracula,” is up for sale with a reported asking price of at least £47 million ($79 million/€57.6 million).

Perched on a cliff near Brasov, in a mountainous area of Romania, the Bran Castle, as the fortress is really known, is the country’s biggest tourist attraction, visited by around 560,000 tourists annually because of its ties to Prince Vlad the Impaler, who lived in the region in the 15th century.

The historic building is currently under the ownership of the heirs of Romania's former royal family – Dominic, Maria Magdalena and Elizabeth de Habsburg, who recovered it after the abolition of the communist regime in Romania. However, the sale is being handled by a New York-based company called Herzfeld and Rubin.

“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,” said Mark Meyer, of Herzfeld and Rubin, according to Fox News.

The current owners refurbished the Bran Castle and opened it to the public as the first private museum of the country. But now, they are all in their 70s and believe they cannot run it any longer, so they decided to sell it.

It is said that the three heirs have offered the Romanian government the chance to buy it for £47 million ($79/€57.6 million), but they keep their options open.

The castle dates back to the thirteenth century and has a quite impressive list of previous owners, from Saxons to Hungarians and Teutonic knights. But, by far, its most famous inhabitant was Vlad Dracul, a.k.a. Vlad the Impaler. He was a member of the House of Draculesti, and, even though he never actually lived in the castle, he’s said to have been imprisoned there for a few months.

Given that the building is not only a national monument but also the most important tourist attraction in Romania, the royal family wants the person who buys it to continue running it as a tourist destination.

“What you have to remember is that this castle is the real thing. We don’t need men going around dressed up in old-fashioned costumes; the place speaks for itself,” Mr. Meyer added. “At present, it makes a tidy profit, but in the right hands, it has the potential to generate far more revenue than we could ever imagine.”