A woman has revealed how she bought a bargain in the Italian village where her grandparents grew up and transformed it into her dream home.
Meredith Tabbone, 43, of Chicago, learned that municipalities in Sicily were auctioning vacant homes with a $1 starting bid to revitalize the village.
The building had no electricity or running water and the roof was covered in asbestos.
Bids started at just €1 – but she made a random offer of £4,400 – only to find out months later that she was the successful buyer.
It cost Meredith €750 (£661) to hire a team to remove the roof in an environmentally friendly way.
Meredith Tabbone (pictured) has family from Sicily – her grandparents grew up in the Sicilian village where she bought her good home
BEFORE: Dating back to the 1600s, the property was practically just a single room before Meredith renovated it
AFTER: After the intensive work, the property still retains its original charm and character, as well as its charm
Meredith then bought the empty house next door for £27,000 – and spent 46 months and £210,000 putting them together to build a 3,000-square-foot, four-bed getaway.
She plans to stay in the house part-time — calling it her “extended vacation home.”
Since then, Meredith has bought two boarding houses in the same village for a total of £28,000, and a disused building for £58,000 which she is turning into a gallery and cafe.
She estimates that her £230,000 investment in the original one-euro home will be worth £3-400,000 when all work is completed in Autumn 2023.
Meredith said, “The house was in very bad shape, but in many ways it was everything I expected it to be and more.
‘It had so much charm! It had such interesting architectural details that you could really see the history coming through the walls. But it was a fixer-upper to say the least.
“When we first saw the house, it was 750 square feet, it had no electricity, running water, or windows, and it was full of asbestos. Initially the plan was to make it a small outing.
BEFORE: The property had no electricity or running water and the roof was covered in asbestos when Meredith bought it
AFTER: After the extensive renovation work, the house has been transformed from a one-room building to a four-bedroom holiday home
According to Meredith, while the property (pictured) required a lot of work, it had a lot of charm
‘While we originally only wanted it as a small retreat, we turned it into a dream home.
“It’s very big and complicated. There are four beds, four bathrooms, an outdoor kitchen, living and dining area.
“We also installed an upper deck, lower deck, spa and wine cellar, as well as a fireplace and pizza oven.”
Meredith Tabbone knew her father Michael’s family was from Sicily.
But she knew no more until she started researching how to get an Italian citizenship in 2016.
She found out that his great-grandfather, Fillippo Tabbone, was from Sambuca di Sicilia, a small village in Sicily.
In January 2019 — a year after she applied for her Italian citizenship — Meredith read an article about people bidding on $1 houses in Italy.
On a ‘whim’ she made an offer on a ‘neglected fixer-upper’ in Sambuca.
She found out she won it in May 2019 and started work a month later.
Meredith Tabbone (pictured) poses for a photo at her renovated home in Sambuca di Sicilia
Meredith seems to have caught the real estate bug after her first successful renovation (pictured) and ended up buying even more properties in the area
In August 2020, she bought the house next door through a private sale.
With the help of an architect, Meredith converted the one-bedroom building into a four-bedroom vacation home.
They installed doors, windows and walls – and laid away electrical wires – to make the building a home.
She purchased two nearby boarding houses in March 2022 and another vacant building in March 2021. Work is currently underway and will be completed by the end of 2024.
Meredith shared her top three tips for renovating a home abroad, saying, “Be patient, the process will take time, learn the local language if you can, and have fun with it!”