When thinking about our favorite authors, it’s natural to wonder about their personal lives and the places they came from. When the homes of these wordsmiths are listed on the real estate market, we can’t help but fantasize about buying them and soaking up some of that writerly mojo by spending time in the same rooms they did, penning their well-known works. Recently, we noticed a number of literary homes up for sale. It seems criminal to keep that information to ourselves, so here are the homes of eight famous writers that you can purchase right now. We’ll be waiting for those dinner invitations.
Dracula’s castle is currently up for sale — at least we think it’s Dracula’s castle. The Romanian landmark is actually called Bran Castle, and it resembles the description of the fortress in Bram Stoker’s famous novel. Although the author never paid a trip to Bran, it’s believed he read about the cliffside location in a book or saw an illustration while composing the draft for his legendary bloodsucker tale. The 57-room, 22-acre manor attracts more than 560,000 tourists each year and currently functions as a museum. One very important thing to note for potential buyers: Drac’s castle doesn’t have any bathrooms.
Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury’s home is now on the market. The 1937 Cheviot Hills residence is going for $1.495 million and features vaulted ceilings, a cozy brick fireplace, specialty molding, and a full basement — the spot where Bradbury wrote daily. “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made, or a garden planted,” Bradbury once opined. “Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.”
The childhood home of one of America’s most successful children’s lit authors is looking for a new owner. Beverly Cleary took inspiration from the 1910 bungalow she grew up in, situated in northeast Portland. The house is on Hancock street, which is just blocks from Klickitat Street — the fictional home of Henry Huggins and the Quimby sisters, Ramona and Beezus. The home is also located near the Beverly Cleary School and the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden at Grant Park. We’re pretty jealous that students at the school will be granted tours while the home is on the market.
Who wouldn’t want to move into the beachfront home of outspoken novelist Norman Mailer? The Provincetown, Massachusetts spot is going for $3.9 million, but the history of the house is priceless. Mailer wrote there from his third-floor study, boxed in the basement, and played poker in the dining room. We can envision him sipping a cocktail on the deck or staring out the window of his sunporch bar. Catch a peek at the view in these photos.
One of the three homes in Oak Park, Illinois that surly scribe Ernest Hemingway lived in as a child, known as the Hemingway Interim House, was put up for sale in February. Built around 1877, the Gothic Revival-style residence was originally located on Grove Avenue, but was moved to a different street in 1999 to make room for the Oak Park Public Library expansion. Some recent updates added to the natural beauty of the structure, which you can take a tour of over here.
“It stood in a sort of little island behind flint walls which we then thought high enough, and almost beneath some big ilex trees. It was small, none too well built, but cheap, and so suited us,” wrote Rudyard Kipling of his home known as The Elms. The 1745 estate is located in the coastal East Sussex village of Rottingdean and was the site where Kipling penned his classic Just So Stories for Little Children. The current asking price for the lush abode is $2.4 million. The home neighbors the former residence of Kipling’s aunt Georgiana, who was married to pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones and lived on the other side of the green. That estate is also being sold. See how The Elms looked during Kipling’s day over here.
The opulent 10,000-square-foot El Fureidis estate in Montecito, California is famously known as the “Scarface house.” The location was used as the site for outdoor shots of Tony Montana’s Coral Gables pad in the 1983 film. The 1906 mansion has a literary history, too. Nobel Prize-winning novelist Thomas Mann also lived there. The Death in Venice author entertained guests that included Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein. The tropical $35 million-dollar manor, which contains four bedrooms and nine bathrooms, is ready to start its next chapter in life and is currently for sale.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Elizabeth Bishop’s inspirational childhood home is being sold. “It’s not a simple matter. It’s not a decision we made lightly. It actually was very difficult decision. It’s an emotional decision,” one of the current 10 owners stated. The Great Village, Nova Scotia property was dear to Bishop. She lived there with her grandparents following the death of her father and the institutionalization of her mother — a time period referenced in many of her writings. “It has a lot of character,” owner Sandra Barry stated. “It may sound strange but she wrote about it and she felt it had a soul.” Bishop was forced from her happy home after her paternal grandparents gained custody of her, but she would return to the beloved farmhouse throughout the years. We never thought a real estate listing could make us cry.