The Italian house you’ve always dreamed of buying won’t, in the end, cost just $1. Re-imagining the stones and timbers first assembled about the time Shakespeare put pen to paper can’t be rushed. It will likely take some deep thought. Some espresso. More thought. More espresso.

Meredith Tabbone admits there are frustrations that come with buying a dilapidated 17th century home in the Sicilian town of Sambuca. She’s a Chicago financial adviser accustomed to getting things done pronto. But two years after she paid about $6,000 for a two-story home she’d only ever seen online, Tabbone sounds like a woman under the spell of a hilltop town that glows pink at sunset and put at ease by Giuseppe, her architect, who utters the Italian word “tranquillo” at just the right time.