Meredith Tabbone lives in Chicago, but for the last five years, she's spent countless hours and nearly half a million dollars to build her dream home in Italy.

It all started in early 2019 when Tabbone learned about a town in Italy, Sambuca di Sicilia, that was auctioning off abandoned properties starting at 1 euro, or roughly $1.05.

At the same time, Tabbone, who works as a financial advisor, was deep into researching her family history. She had just traced her great-grandfather back to the same Sicilian town before he started a new life in America.

The coincidence was "too good to be true," and she took it as a sign to place a bid.

A few months later, Tabbone became the owner of the 1-euro home. She also bought the building next door and got to work managing a local crew on the massive renovation.

Today, Tabbone, 45, uses her Sicily property as a vacation getaway, and she says it feels like a primary residence. The home includes two primary bedrooms, two guest bedrooms, a kitchen with modern finishes, a large dining room with a gallery wall of photography, a library, a living room, a dry-heat sauna and two terraces, including one with a pizza oven and outdoor dining area.

In all, she spent roughly $475,000 on her Italian dream home.

The cost breakdown

While bids for the Sicilian properties started at 1 euro, Tabbone placed a bid of 5,555 euros for her building. With taxes and fees, she spent 5,900 euros (roughly $6,200) to take ownership of the property.

She visited her new home for the first time in June 2019. The condition of the property was "dire at best," Tabbone tells CNBC Make It: no electricity, no running water, asbestos in the roof and "probably two feet of pigeon poop on the floor."

After seeing the space, she also bought the vacant home next door through a private sale with the owner for 22,000 euros (just over $23,000). 

Combining the two properties meant a bigger renovation budget: Tabbone initially planned to spend 40,000 euros to renovate 620 square feet, but that grew to 140,000 euros to cover 2,700 square feet.

By the end of her renovation in October 2023, she spent roughly 425,000 euros, or $446,000. Because the project was delayed by the pandemic and spread out over several years, she was able to pay for it all over time without taking out loans.

Simple, but significant

Tabbone's goal with her Sicilian property was to build a vacation home where she could also host visiting friends and family.

To start, Tabbone's renovation team made structural changes like breaking down several walls to open up common areas, leveling the floors across the two buildings, adding steel beams to protect against earthquakes, and adding two terraces.

It was Tabbone's first renovation project ever. She was inspired by her father, who was an architect and died when she was 15. She now calls the home Casa dell'Architetto in his honor.

Tabbone says her vision was to design a space that is "simple, but significant," in a nod to "Mad Men'" character Don Draper.

The finished project is "a thousand times better" than her original vision, she says. "It's modern, but it's still cozy. And it really showcases all of the best features that were already in the home," like original archways, a trough in the kitchen and a unique staircase.

Now that her home is complete, Tabbone plans to spend four months out of the year in Sicily. She also uses it as a gathering space to host dinner parties with friends she's made in Sambuca.

"It's an amazing community" of expats and locals, she says.

A bridge between past and future

Tabbone says her Sambuca property is more than a vacation spot. "What this home really means for me is a bridge between my past and my future," she says. "It was a chance to really reconnect with my father's lineage. But it also speaks to my future because it's something that I've created for myself ... where I can think more about enjoying my life and having a better work-life balance."

Tabbone doesn't plan to sell the house and has already promised it to a cousin if she passes away first. "After that, it's going to be donated to the village," Tabbone says.

Though Tabbone splurged on her home away from home, she says what she's gained from the experience is invaluable.

"There's a real sense of community here, so I definitely think people are very happy here," she says. Plus, "I've started to think differently about how I'm building my business, and maybe not having the focus of my life be about work, [but] about just personal fulfillment in general," she says.

Overall, she adds, she feels it's "important to preserve old buildings like this" that can't be recreated with modern materials or building sensibilities. "The attention to detail, the quality of the items, the ability for these buildings to last for centuries. It's just not done anymore," she says.

Conversions from EUR to USD were done using the OANDA conversion rate of 1 EUR to 1.05 USD on Oct 18, 2023. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

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