Hașdeu was born in Bucharest on 1869-11-14, the only child of Romanian scholar Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu and Iulia Faliciu. A gifted student and writer from an unusually young age, she studied literature, languages, music, and art before continuing her education in Paris. In 1886 she entered the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at the Sorbonne and also attended courses at the École des Hautes Études while pursuing literary and academic work. She contracted tuberculosis and died in Bucharest on 1888-09-29, aged eighteen.

Iulia's death profoundly affected Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu, already a prominent historian, philologist, writer, folklorist, and member of the Romanian Academy. He increasingly turned toward spiritualism and the possibility that consciousness survived bodily death. Hașdeu practiced automatic writing and participated in séances through which he believed he communicated with his deceased daughter and other spirits. These interests were not merely attributed to him by later haunted-house literature: spiritualist manuscripts, notes, and related material survive and form an important part of the collection now preserved at the B. P. Hașdeu Memorial Museum.

Hașdeu's first major memorial project for Iulia was her funerary monument at Bellu Cemetery in Bucharest, built between 1888 and 1891. He subsequently developed plans for a second memorial at Câmpina. The official museum preserves the first known sketch of what became Iulia Hașdeu Castle on a page of a spiritualist manuscript dated 1893-09-03. The museum states that Hașdeu himself drew the plans while maintaining that inspiration for the project came from the immortal spirit of his daughter. Surviving manuscripts show that the original concept differed from the final building and that the design changed over time.

Construction took place between 1894 and 1896. The completed building consists of three crenellated stone towers, with the central tower forming a temple-like space. Its architecture incorporates an extensive symbolic program reflecting Hașdeu's interests in spiritualism, Christianity, philosophy, mathematics, immortality, and esoteric thought. Symbols documented by the museum include sphinx figures, Pythagorean motifs, a pentagram, seven circles, crosses, a crescent, parallel mirrors, and the prominent "Eye of the World" above the entrance.

The castle's central tower contains what became known as the Temple. The space includes an altar and a statue of Jesus sculpted by Raphael Casciani, reached by metal steps. Parallel mirrors and colored rooms formed additional elements of the symbolic interior. These features make the building unusual because Hașdeu's spiritualist worldview is materially embedded in its architecture rather than merely being imposed upon the property by later paranormal storytelling.

Hașdeu continued his spiritualist investigations after the castle was built. Automatic-writing manuscripts and séance-related documents attributed by Hașdeu to communication with Iulia remain part of the historical record. Their survival securely documents Hașdeu's belief that communication occurred, rather than independently demonstrating that the writings originated from a deceased person. This distinction is important because it allows the archive to document the unusual circumstances surrounding the castle without converting Hașdeu's spiritual interpretation into an established fact.

The castle later acquired a broader reputation for paranormal phenomena. Modern accounts describe unexplained music, footsteps or other sounds, apparitions, sensations of a presence, and experiences interpreted as manifestations of Iulia. The historical development of these haunting traditions is less securely established than Hașdeu's own spiritualist activity. Determining when reports of the castle itself being haunted first appeared, and whether those stories developed during Hașdeu's lifetime or substantially later, remains an important research question.

The castle also has a substantial documented history unrelated to paranormal claims. It suffered damage during the First World War, subsequently underwent restoration efforts, and was placed on Romania's list of historical monuments in 1955. Restoration between 1962 and 1964 prepared the site for use as the B. P. Hașdeu Memorial Museum, which opened on 1965-04-09. Further restoration and consolidation followed damage from the 1977 earthquake and continued into the twenty-first century.

Today, the museum preserves family portraits, photographs, original documents, manuscripts, furniture, first editions, artworks, architectural sketches, and material documenting Hașdeu's spiritualist interests. This unusually rich physical and documentary record distinguishes Iulia Hașdeu Castle from many locations whose supernatural reputations depend primarily on later folklore.

The case therefore contains two evidentiary layers that should remain distinct. The first is exceptionally well documented: following Iulia's death, Bogdan Petriceicu Hașdeu embraced spiritualism, practiced automatic writing, believed he communicated with his daughter, and created an architecturally symbolic memorial strongly influenced by those beliefs. The second consists of subsequent claims that Iulia or other spirits objectively manifest at the castle. Those later reports can be investigated on their own evidence without diminishing the remarkable documented history that made the castle a spiritualist landmark in the first place.