4 Bran Castle
The former Romanian royal family listed Bran Castle for sale in 2007. Located on a rock close to Brasov, the fortress is a well-known sight. It served as a bulwark against Ottoman Turks and is linked to Vlad the Impaler, the historical figure on whom Bram Stoker based the character Count Dracula in his novels.
From 1920 through 1948, the majestic building served as the royals’ residence. The communist regime then took it away from Princess Ileana. It gained the name “Dracula’s Castle” during restoration in the late 1980s, and has been a popular tourist destination ever since.
The property was given back to Archduke Dominic Habsburg, aged 69, Princess Ileana’s son, in 2006. Local officials rejected his request to sell the castle for $80 million, thus it is now a museum.
Habsburg offered the castle for sale once more following the transaction’s rejection. His counsel anticipated that Habsburg would get a bid for the property of $135 million. There haven’t been any purchasers as of yet.
3 London Bridge
Industrialist Robert McCulloch wanted to bring visitors to the then-sweltering backwater of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, in 1968. In order to rebuild it over the Colorado River, he purchased the renowned London Bridge and transported the iconic 19th-century structure stone by stone across the Atlantic Ocean and the continental United States.
London Bridge was found to be sinking by 2.5 cm (1 in) per eight years by English officials in the 1960s. The 305-meter (1,000-foot) granite bridge was abandoned in favor of constructing a replacement because renovations were thought to be too expensive. City Councilor Ivan Luckin urged the city try to sell the bridge before it was junked. They may possibly sell it to an American.
In order to “sweeten” the deal, McCulloch promised the authorities double the $1.2 million it would have cost them to tear down the bridge. He held the bridge. Each stone block was identified by its location, row, and span. The blocks were transported to their ultimate location in a convoy of trucks, while the disassembled bridge was packaged and delivered to Long Beach, California.
They were put back together there, and steel-reinforced concrete was used to fortify the structure’s center. McCulloch spent an additional $7 million on the dismantling, shipment, and reassembly, but London Bridge ended up being the perfect tourist destination for him. After the monument was built, Lake Havasu City’s population “blossomed.”
