How to buy a €1 home in Sicily without ruining its culture When Alexandra Stubbs heard a friend had bought one of Italy’s infamous €1 houses, she felt a little rattled. “I did the usual kind of thing — what the hell’s that all about, how is that going to work? I’m really skeptical,” she says. But underneath the skepticism, there was something else, too. “I absolutely loved Sicily from visits in my 20s and 30s, so I just thought, oh, I’ll tag along with him when he goes back to visit his house — I was visiting friends in Rome and I thought I’d really like to check out Sicily again,” she says.