This address would have been one to avoid. In Bram Stoker’s 1897 gothic novel, Dracula, the evil Count Dracula owns a mansion on Piccadilly, one of numerous homes he purchases in London.
The address believed to be that of the mansion, based on information and architectural details given in the book, has apparently been identified – by people reportedly including Bernard Davies, co-founder of The Dracula Society, no less – as a property at number 138.
After arriving in England – landing at Whitby, Dracula had first moved into a property called Carfax House located at Purfleet on the River Thames, just to the east of London.
But after he was spotted in London, it is discovered that he has a property in Piccadilly (identified, though never named in the book, as 138). Those hunting him – including the unfortunate Jonathan Harker and vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing – break in to the property with the intent of destroying some of the many boxes filled with earth Dracula brought to England with him from Transylvania (he needs them to keep alive). They do so and there find keys to numerous other properties in the city as well, dispatching two of their number to go and destroy any boxes they find there.
They then wait in ambush for the Count at the “vile smelling” Piccadilly property but he manages to elude their attack and escape. Their chase then leads them to leave London and to pursue Dracula across Europe before he is finally defeated back at his home in Transylvania.
The Grade II-listed, three storey property at 138 Piccadilly, located opposite Green Park, is now known as Eon House and is located next door to the Hard Rock Cafe. It originally dates from the late 18th century and was remodelled in the early 1890s – just before the book was written.
The book, Dracula, is, of course, also associated with other London locations – including the London Zoo and Hampstead Heath. And Stoker himself lived in London for much of his life, spending 27 years as an acting manager and business manager at the Lyceum Theatre in the West End. An urn containing his ashes is at the Golders Green Crematorium.
PICTURE: Google Maps
Exploring London 
On 2 October 1890, the carter, Sam Bloxam, told Jonathan Harker that the house was “only a few doors from a big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built”. The house was “a high ‘un with a stone front with a bow {window] on it, and ‘igh steps up to the door”.
Harker then “walked westward; beyond the Junior Constitutional [Club] I came across the house described”. The JCC at no 101 Piccadilly is now the Japanese Embassy. We know Dracula’s house also had a (presumably 1st floor) balcony.
Bizarrely, the estate agent’s letter giving Lord Godalming details of the sale is dated 1 Oct, ie the day before Harker learns of the house’s location! It reveals the the house is no 347 – a fictitious number, of course.
On 3 Oct – a day notable for the death of Renfield – the housebreaking team is assembled, comprising Lord Godalming (“my title will make it all right with the locksmith”!), Morris, Harker, Seward and Van Helsing. The last three leave their cab by the east side of the yet-to-be-built Ritz Hotel in Arlington St and walk westward into Green Park to keep watch on the house. After the locksmith has done his work, the trio cross the road and join Lord G and the Prof. The dining room window “looked out across a narrow stone-flagged yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed to look the front of a miniature house”, and it was this from which the Count, when confronted, jumped (fortunately without harm to himself, otherwise we’d have been deprived of the climax on the road to Castle Dracula!).
I think there are other candidates for the house, such as no 107, just a few doors down from the JCC and exactly as described by Bloxam. At that time (1890 – the evidence for the year is on the very last page of the book), the building was occupied by the Savile Club, which included among its members many of Bram Stoker’s friends and acquaintances. I don’t know whether he was a member, but he surely would have been familiar with the building and might have chosen it as a little dig at his friends.
Thank you very much for this remarkable work! One can read the novel, but it’s always hard to imagine the places, specially when you’re not a Londoner and cinema hasn’t made much justice to it in this aspect, really.
Exceptional, fact and fiction real food for thought. I can almost invision some his inspiration.