Did you ever want to live in a castle? Did you ever want to live in a castle with an evil reputation? Well there is one on the market available to anyone with 80 million dollars. The castle in Bran Castle in Romania and it is the castle that Bram Stoker set his Gothic novel "Dracula" in. In reality it is just a plan old Romanian Castle set in the hills or Transylvania owned by an Archduke.
It was built in 1377 on the top of Mount Izvorul Calimanului in what is now Romania. It was once the favorite castle of Queen Marie of Romania and was used as a hospital during World War II.
When the communists took over the family who stilled owned it was turned out. Once the communists were out of power the was a small legal struggle over the retrocession of the property but in the end it was decided that it belonged to Archduke Dominic. Archduke Dominic has been running it as a museum displaying old family furniture. He now wants to sell the place. He would like to sell it to some one who is into the history of the castle and wants to keep it intact.
So if you love castles and have the dough give the Archduke a call.
If you have a spare 45 million dollars have I got a house for you! It is in the very elegant South Palms Springs neighborhood and it was once the home of a bonafide celebrity. The house designed by architectural superstar John Lautner in 1973 but wasn't built until 1976. Well it was almost built but it burned to the ground just before the original completion and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. But who was the celebrity??? It was none other than Bob Hope. Hope and his wife Dolores had the house built to their specifications and it is a quirky house to say the least. The spaceship shaped two story house has 22,000 square feet and a mushroom like roof. It also incorporated natural elements like a huge boulder in the living room. Hope and his wife built the house for just over 2 million dollars. This is the first time it has been on the market as Dolores Hope lived there until her death last year. She was 102.
The house has six bedrooms and ten bathrooms and is next to another Coachella Valley architectural icon the Elrod house.
