How Dracula author Bram Stoker’s childhood Dublin home was transformed

Behind a blood-red door on a Georgian crescent lies the birthplace of Bram Stoker. Save for its haemoglobin hue, there is little else that would distinguish it as the home of the author of Dracula.
Stoker was born here, in Marino, Dublin 3, on November 8th, 1847. The third of seven children, he was said to be confined to his bed for much of his early years, on the piano nobile, in the front room, where the family would have had a key to the park to the front. There is a plaque to him in said park.
It is there where the young Bram is said to have watched the lives of family and neighbours from his bedroom window. It may have been here, too, that his mother regaled him with stories, including the horrors of the cholera plague in her native Sligo. These bedtime stories of the living dead may have helped inspire the novel that made his international name.
[ Long-lost story by Dracula author Bram Stoker unearthed at National Library of IrelandOpens in new window ]
The property itself is storied. The crescent is the only Georgian one of its kind in Dublin. It was laid out in the last decade of the 18th century, to take advantage of its then sea views at every level. This was before land reclamation projects associated with the enlargement of Dublin Port. The homes were built by Charles Ffolliott, reputedly to spite Lord Charlemont, blocking the vista from Marino House, and were locally known as Spite Crescent.
But by January 2012, when it last came to market, number 15, a three-storey house over raised basement midterrace property, had become a shadow of its former self.
For Susana de Abrew, who had lived in London, New Zealand and then Melbourne, Australia, with her family, “it was time to come home”, she says.
It had crucifixes aplenty throughout, and needed completely upgrading. What drew her to the property were its light-filled rooms. “It gets light all day, front and back,” she says. At hall level, the interconnecting rooms deliver a dual-aspect space that sees the sun beam into the dining area, emitting the kind of rays that would vanquish any vampire.
Despite the recession, and with building work scarce, the job scared off three different builders, she recalls.
She enlisted the services of a conservation engineer and, given the house’s protected structure status, also had to employ an archaeologist. All that was found was a very large door key, which she gave to her parents.
She project-managed the job from Australia, flying back six times during the 12 months of construction to progress it. Living in a more compact home in Melbourne, where Australian design favours a contemporary aesthetic with a good sense of flow, she wanted to bring this approach into the home.
But first, some creature comforts. The house was cold, having never had any form of central heating.
[ Bram Stoker: a century in the shadowsOpens in new window ]
She also installed new glazing. The slim-framed, six-over-six sash sliding windows all have box surrounds. She retained the coving and revealed for the first time the wide plank flooring of Stoker’s bedroom, now stained a rich cognac colour. The gap between floors was insulated, while those at hall level were also soundproofed to dim down any sound transference between that level and the self-contained apartment she now has below.
Because the house is a protected structure, materials had to be replaced with “like for like”, she explains. In addition to increasing costs, this meant sourcing some materials from abroad. The roof slates came from Scotland, for example.
While she grew up in nearby Clontarf, she says she “had no idea how alive the culture surrounding Bram Stoker and Dracula was”.
She soon found out. She has fans calling to the front door regularly, including “people from Romania, the United States, as well as film crews from the BBC, Channel 4 and a French channel. They just rock up and start filming”.
One morning, while on her front steps and still in her dressing gown, a tourist shouted “move” at her, so that she might clear his phone’s frame so that he could get his shot.
At Halloween, there are tours three times a day. “One day I opened the door to a lady completely dressed up as a vampire.”
[ O’Dracula? Whatever Bram Stoker’s creation was, he wasn’t IrishOpens in new window ]
Sometimes they arrive in the middle of the night – fitting for a horror narrative, but this is a family home. She had one man shouting up at the house at 2am in the morning and banging on the door. She called the guards. The following year a different man arrived under cover of darkness, and behaved equally antisocially.
As a mother to young children, much of this attention is unwelcome. But trick or treaters can call, she says: “The rule around here is that if the lights are off, kids know not to knock.” After a certain hour she also closes the front gates.
When she bought the property, it had an enviously long – 150ft – back garden with vehicular rear access. So, working with architect practice Ambacht’s Adela Gómez and Bram D’hoedt, she has since built two, two-bedroom plus attic, homes. Constructed of blush pink brick, these A-rated homes were inspired by the open-plan flow of Australian living.
“This is a sleeping giant of a house and key to the whole story of Bram Stoker,” she says. “This incredible writer, ignored for a long time, whose Dracula is one of the most translated books of all time” has spawned 80 clubs around the world.
This house has many other gems in its rich history. The mother of Harry Boland, the charismatic leader within the Irish revolutionary movement, also lived here. It was in the ashes drawer of the range in the original kitchen, in the basement (now a one-bedroom apartment) that jewels were hidden by Boland – collateral for a Government loan of $20,000 given to Russia.