That’s Random: “Dracula’s Castle” for Sale

Always had a burning desire to live in a true Transylvanian castle, and have an extra $78 million burning a hole in your pocket? Then you’re in luck: Bran Castle, the nearly 800-year-old former residence of Transylvanian bluebloods, has just been put up for sale by a descendant of the deposed Romanian royal family.

According to local legend, Prince Vlad Tepes (otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler, after his favored form of dispatching with his enemies) spent time at the castle during his bloody reign in the 1400s. Though he didn’t actually drink blood from his thousands of victims, the Transylvanian terror did spill plenty of it, and became the inspiration for the title character in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Bran Castle itself inspired the setting for parts of Stoker’s 1897 novel, earning the medieval manor the nickname “Dracula’s Castle.”


Built in 1212 and later used as a fortress to hold off invading Turks, the Gothic dwelling is set atop a cliff in the Carpathian Mountains, near the Transylvanian city of Brasov. Features include 11-foot-thick walls, lofty towers, secret underground passages, and subterranean dungeons.

A photographic tour of the property:

What do you think? Is it love at first … bite?

eBay Find of the Day: Dorothy Draper Espana Chest

Ah, Dorothy Draper. What's not to love about her? Such style and panache, and such totally over-the-top WASPy fabulousness.

(If you're not familiar with the legendary designer, be sure to check out the amazing book In the Pink: Dorothy Draper, America's Most Fabulous Decorator, about her life and work, as well as Draper's own recently reissued how-to tome, Decorating is Fun!)

Circa-1950s black lacquer Espana chests like this one, designed by Draper for Heritage Furniture, are much in demand by designers and others who favor a "dramatic-glam" look. Here's one used to great effect by the incredible Los Angeles designer Vanessa De Vargas in her own home:

Similar chests typically sell for several hundred dollars or more (there's a virtually identical model listed by another eBay seller right now with a starting bid of $375, for instance). With two days left in the auction, the bidding may still get heated -- but for now, at least, this is looking like a total steal.

Current bid: $22.

(Bottom photo: Lisa Romerein for Sunset Magazine.)

Cool Stuff: Moroccan Table at Target

I just saw via Another Shade of Grey that Target is rolling out a huge new collection of Moroccan-style furnishings and accessories, so I clicked on over to the Tar-jay site to check it out.

The look they're featuring is a little dark and heavy (and, let's be honest, a bit "hippie") for my current mood. But I did spot this cute octagonal table for just $40.

I've been looking for one for awhile, with the idea that I'd spray-paint the whole thing in high-gloss white, hot pink, lime green, or some other shocking shade (maybe Maryam of My Marrakesh's "Majorelle Blue"?) -- a la the Garnet Hill tables, below -- to highlight the table's great detail and to give the piece a bit of mod-glam style. But I've hesitated up until now to "deface" a true Moroccan table in this way, or to part with $128 for Garnet Hill's cheerful version.

But for $40 and a can of spray paint? I'm all over it.

You can find the Target table here, and the complete line of Target's new "Moroccan Mod" offerings here.

Etsy Find of the Day: Handpainted Plates

Aren't these plates just lovely?

Handpainted by Etsy seller OlaDesign (aka Vancouver, B.C. artist Olga Cuttell), the 8-inch plates are customized with white blossoms on both sides. The plates are then fired to render the design permanent and to make the plates hand-washable. (10-inch plates are available as well, as are matching bowls.)

I love the delicate artwork and the luminosity and bright, clear colors of the glass plates. As the artist herself says, the design is "simple, but never plain."

$28 for a set of three. More info here.

Mark Your Calendar: Oakland Heritage Alliance Summer Walking Tours

The Oakland Heritage Alliance just released the schedule for this year’s summer walking tours. (I’ve been on a couple of these walks in the past, and found them fun and informative -- but then I’m sort of a geek that way.)

Among the highlights:

Saturday, July 7: F.M. “Borax” Smith Estate
“Visit the remnants of Arbor Villa, Francis Marion 'Borax' Smith’s palatial estate. See the 9th Ave. palm trees, Mary R. Smith cottages, and historic houses, including examples by Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan.”

Sunday, July 8: Mountain View Cemetery
“Take a walk into the past in California’s most historic cemetery to meet some of our state’s early movers and shakers.”

Saturday, July 21: Picardy Drive: A Step Back in Time
“Visit Picardy Drive, famous for holiday lighting displays. The neighborhood retains late 1920s bungalow and period revival styles as well as community-oriented design.”

Sunday, July 22: Lake Merritt Modern
“A look at apartment houses and dwellings along the east side of the lake. Several periods and styles will be covered, but a special focus will be post-World War II architecture.”

Sunday, July 29: Eichlers of Oakland: Modernism at Home in the Hills
“Oakland has its own residential district of modern houses (1964–65) by Joseph Eichler that match the modernist buildings of downtown. The tour will reveal the wonders of modernism as applied to the family home.”

Saturday, August 4: Preservation Park to Pardee Mansion
“This historic district preserves Oakland’s 19th century character. Learn about Preservation Park. Visit the Pardee House with special guides highlighting unique aspects of its history. Bring a picnic and play croquet on the lawn.”

Saturday, August 11: Temescal
“Explore the commercial district that developed around the Oakland Street Railway car barn, built in 1870. Visit the sites of pioneering enterprises. See Victorian and early 20th century stores. Discover residential streets with period homes.”

Sunday, August 12: Laurel Neighborhood
“The Laurel district began life in 1909 when local streetcars extended service to 38th Ave. This tour highlights Laurel’s history and architectural heritage -- with its fine examples of ’20s brick and tile commercial buildings.”

Saturday, September 8: Montclair Village
“Explore the history and architecture of Montclair Village, a vibrant hill community. Montclair’s distinctive buildings -- the fire station, women’s club, recreation center, library, and more will be featured.”

Sunday, September 16: Eichlers of Oakland: Modernism at Home in the Hills
See Sunday, July 29.

Tours are $15 each, or $10 for OHA members. For the complete schedule and info, click here.

(Photos by Robert Giles, Myrtice Wong, Alan Templeton, Jerry Schmitz, Valerie Garry, and Dennis Evanosky.)

Over and Out: Happy Fourth

Hope you have a lovely day.

(Photo from flickr member fouramjava.)

The Artful Home: Art by Sheila Metcalf Tobin

Colorful, kaleidoscopic, and unabashedly sensual, Sheila Metcalf Tobin's botanical art seems to burst off the canvas. Her fruit and floral subjects -- "the bounty of the earth" is an ongoing theme -- are at once instantly recognizable and intriguingly abstract, startlingly intricate and strikingly bold.

Rendered on sheets of birch and maple plywood, Tobin's works "interact with the material's surface and create a sensation reminiscent of the sensual experience of moving through a garden," says the Berkeley artist, an Art Institute of Chicago MFA who spent chunks of her childhood on her great grandparents' farm in rural Alabama.

Limited-edition, 22-by-28-inch screen prints (including "Primera Impresión," above, and "Falling in the Garden," below) cost $300, or $600 in hand-built maple frames. Tobin originals run $300 to $2,800.

A joint exhibition with Oakland painter Margaret Chavigny opens at Oakland's Mercury 20 Gallery on Friday, July 6 (in conjunction with the monthly Oakland Art Murmur First Fridays) and runs through July 29. (Among the new works shown will be "Emergent," left, $900.)

To see more of Tobin's work, visit her website.

Cool Stuff: One Faire Day

Nick and I had a rare treat on Sunday: Both of us were able to slip out early to the Alameda Antiques & Collectibles Faire while the kids were at friends' houses after Saturday-night sleepovers. Normally only one of us gets to go (that would be me), or the whole family attends together but we can't manage to get everyone out of the house until later -- and then we have to listen to the kids whine the entire time about how we're torturing them by dragging them out to look at a bunch of "old stuff." I'm sure their future therapists will hear all about this abusive behavior someday ...

(Question for you other flea-marketing parents: How do you do it? I see kids there with their parents every month, and they don't look like they're on the brink of mutiny like our kids always do. We've even tried to bribe them with the promise of churros and a small budget to find their own treasures, or attempted to make a game out of spotting things -- but all to no avail. If you have secrets for making flea markets a reasonably enjoyable family affair, I'd love to hear them.)

Anyway, I'm happy to report that the Faire's new location isn't much different from the old location, and that the gorgeous view of SF remains intact. We didn't have an agenda this month -- I'd already blogged the Faire and there was no one thing we were on the hunt for. In fact, we came home with only one $7 ceramic dish in which to toss keys on our entry table. (Sadly, Nick would not let me take home the cement garden deer, below.) But it was so nice to just wander around hand-in-hand, checking out the wares, chatting with the vendors, and enjoying the sunshine.

I snapped some pictures of things that happened to catch my eye, and only realized later that there were a few themes at work: I seemed to be drawn to turquoise (surprise, surprise), patinaed metal and shiny silver objects, old bottles, objects from the ocean, and, um, disembodied heads.

A photographic scrapbook of the day:

Cool Stuff: Firefly Lamp

I love the pared-down simplicity of Lucite wizard Aaron R. Thomas's Firefly Lamp.

Formed from a clear acrylic base and a nickel-plated rod, this lamp is all about the unadorned bulb -- a five-inch-wide, crystal-clear beauty enclosing five tiny "fireflies." No shade needed. I think a grouping of these on a glass or Lucite table would be gorgeous.

The lamps, which are available in four sizes ranging from 16 to 22 inches tall, normally retail for $250, but can be purchased directly from Thomas's website for $99 each. More info right here.

eBay Find of the Day: Ceramic Garden Stool

These glazed ceramic stools are all over the design magazines these days -- used in pairs at the foot of the beds, as side tables, display stands, extra seating, or simply to add a splash of vibrant color to the room.

They usually run several hundred dollars from high-end retailers, but you can snag one from eBay seller DestinASIAN for about a third the normal price. (I bought one in lime green, and it's top quality and stunning in person.)

I love the bold turquoise color and high-gloss glaze on this one, but if you're in the market for a different hue, DestiASIAN has dozens more in a variety of shades and traditional patterns.

Current bid: $130, or you can Buy It Now for $140. (Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for DestinASIAN's occasional $99 sales, too.)