Meredith Tabbone now lives four months of the year in the Sicilian town of Sambuca
A woman who “blindly” bought a house being auctioned off for just €1 in Sicily says that her life and the town where she now lives for a third of the year have been completely transformed.
Financial adviser Meredith Tabbone said she had the “biggest shock I have ever had” when a friend forwarded her an email detailing how Sambuca di Sicilica, a town in the island’s east, was selling houses for the equivalent of 87p.
“In the email, I saw that the name of the village was the same village as where my [ancestors] were from,” Tabbone, 46, told The i Paper. “I had found out just three months before, that is where my family was from.”
Then, just over a month after she “blindly put a random bid” on a home in Sambuca, Tabbone received another email to say she had put in the highest offer of €5,900 (£5,127).
“A month later, I went to Sicily for the first time ever and fell in love with everything,” she said.
Tabbone, who lives mostly in Chicago and now has an Italian passport, said she did not regret a thing, and now lives in Sambuca for a month at a time, four times a year.
“It has all been surprising in the best possible way,” she said.
Due to declining birth rates and rapid urbanisation during the so-called Italian economic miracle of the postwar era, Sambuca – like many small towns across Italy – went from a rich cultural centre to a town with a population of only a few thousand.
In 2019, the commune decided to auction homes with a starting price of €1, with the aim of attracting foreign residents.
After buying her first house in Sambuca, Tabbone realised the house next door was unoccupied – as is the case with “90 per cent” of houses in the town. Even though it was not for sale, she asked if the owner of the house next door was willing to sell it, and they said yes.
Tabbone combined the two houses and took four years renovating the property, spending €475,000 (£412,813). It now has four bedrooms and four bathrooms.
“It was very, very, very difficult… You really have to have a lot of patience because people move at a different pace [in Sambuca],” she said, adding: “I spent 7,000 hours on designing the kitchen alone.
“At one point, during Covid, the wheels were turning really slowly. I was thinking, ‘What am I doing?’”
And while she may have spent the same amount of money renovating the house as it would cost to buy a brand new one, the result is something truly unique.
“There is nothing remotely, remotely close to what I have in the rest of the village,” she said. “The way I have done it, with the space and technology it has… everything is custom done, the windows, the doors and the design.
“There is a dry sauna, a wine cellar, two large terraces and a kitchen designed with a team in Venice.”
According to Tabbone, “the same house in Chicago would be 10 times” what she put into the house.
And it is not just her new house she can enjoy when staying in Sambuca. The town too has changed radically for the better.
The €1 house programme has succeeded in attracting buyers from all over the world. Tabbone described how Sambuca had been converted from a forgotten village to a thriving economic hub and cultural melting pot.
She gave an example of when she went to a local bakery on her birthday. “While I was there,” she said, “there was an opera singer from Sweden… she sang happy birthday in opera, in Swedish. That would never happen anywhere else in the world.”
“When I first bought the property, there was so much unemployment. Now, it is hard to find an electrician, plumber or contractor [because they are so busy],” she continued. “Now you even have to go to the neighbouring village [to get one].
“Now I feel more at home there than anywhere else in the world. I have loads of friends – locals and foreigners. I honestly think they are the most special people on earth. Every day, a surprising thing happens there.”
Personally, she said the experience had changed her outlook on life, turning her from someone who was “so work-centric and scheduled” to a person who prioritises having a “rich life”.
“Living in Sambuca has opened my eyes and my mind up. Work is still important, but less important,” she said.
Locals, too, seem “really happy” with the outcome of the €1 housing scheme and the town being slowly repopulated, according to Tabbone.
With her ancestors having left Sambuca because of a lack of job opportunities, the town’s remaining Italian residents find it particularly special that the Tabbone family name has been able to return.
“Locals are really excited about it. It is the first thing that comes up, the first thing they say whenever they introduce me to someone else, especially because I am young, compared to the average age [of the remaining natives],” said Tabbone.
She said her email inbox was always full of people asking her whether they should follow in her footsteps. “As long as they have the means and the lifestyle to accommodate it, I always encourage them,” she said.
“If you are waiting for the perfect situation to arise, you are never going to do it or have the outcome that you want. You just have to go for it.”
