Queens County couple featured on A&E house hunt show

Ryan and Elizabeth Brown, who live near Liverpool, will be featured on an episode of the new A&E TV show Oceanfront Property Hunt on Saturday afternoon. (Rick Conrad)
Elizabeth and Ryan Brown knew they wanted to get out of Ontario.
And they knew they wanted to buy a house on the water in Nova Scotia.
But what they didn’t expect when they began their search was to be featured in an internationally broadcast television show.
The Queens County couple’s quest will be on the new A&E show, Oceanfront Property Hunt, this coming Saturday afternoon. Produced by Halifax-based Ocean Entertainment, the show follows a different couple each episode as they look for an oceanfront home. Two episodes are broadcast back-to-back beginning at 1 p.m.
The couple has organized a community watch party on Saturday afternoon at Route 3 Cellar Taproom and Grill in Liverpool.
“Ideally, we’ll have the show on all their TVs so that everyone can watch it with us, and I will be hiding under a table if it goes sideways,” Elizabeth says, laughing. “We’ll be seeing it fresh with everybody else. So yeah, I’m a little nervous. A little nervous.”
Elizabeth is an insurance underwriter and Ryan is the sales manager at Liverpool Home Hardware. They were living in Kitchener when they decided they wanted to move to a smaller, less hectic community.
“We were wanting to get something on the water, either lakefront or ocean,” Elizabeth says. “And Ryan’s preference would have been oceanfront. And we’re pretty outdoorsy. We like canoeing, kayaking, camping. And to have something that’s literally on our doorstep, that was our motivation for moving to Nova Scotia because everything is right here.”
“We were eventually going to retire out here,” Ryan says, “but we just moved that forward a bit.”
The Browns applied to be on the show after their Halifax-based realtor told them about it.
Their realtor had been cast on the show, but the producers also wanted some of her clients to apply.
Elizabeth says she told Ryan they were going to apply.
“And I was like, ‘Oh, OK, I guess we’re doing this,'” Ryan says.
They had to submit a video about themselves, their house hunt and why they wanted to be on the water.
“Ocean Entertainment was great. The crew was great,” Elizabeth said in a recent interview. “They were a lot of fun to work with. I feel like it wasn’t reality. I feel like it was our pretend life. We’re on TV, and this is bananas. But we were actually doing it.”
Elizabeth admits that applying for the show was a little outside her usual comfort zone. But she and Ryan fell in love with their new home and community and wanted to share it.
“When we saw Liverpool, we really liked it. But really it was the house that settled it. As soon as we walked into it, we knew that was the house we really wanted.”
The 45-year-olds booked time off work for the four-day shoot last summer. The production crew followed the couple around Queens County on their search for waterfront houses.
The episode features some local landmarks like the Quarterdeck Resort on Summerville Beach.
Until the show airs, they’re sworn to secrecy about which house they chose or even where. But they’re more than happy to talk about how they feel about the move to Queens County from Kitchener.
“I wish we’d done it years ago,” Elizabeth says.
“Yeah, I would agree with that. I love it,” Ryan says. “I wouldn’t change a thing. I love our life here. I love our house.”
“The people we’ve met have been great,” Elizabeth continues. “Our neighbourhood is great. Our friends are great. Our neighbours have been awesome with helping us get settled in.”
“We’re on the beach probably two to three times a week,” Ryan says.
“All of the things that we were looking for in an oceanfront property, in what we wanted to get out of being in Nova Scotia, we’re getting,” Elizabeth says. “And it’s fricking awesome.”
The couple has high praise for Ocean Entertainment and the overall experience, especially the short-term star treatment that came along with it.
Ryan: “It was a lot of fun and a lot of work.”
Elizabeth: “It was like having a little army follow you around. One of the assistants was like the snack girl. And so literally all I had to say is, ‘I’m kind of hungry.’ And she would appear. And I had some dairy allergies. So she would appear with a selection of things that I can eat. And it was wonderful. I’m like, ‘Can I keep you?'”
Two episodes of Oceanfront Property Hunt featuring Queens and Lunenburg counties air on A&E on Saturday beginning at 1 p.m. Atlantic. The episode featuring the Browns airs at 1:30. Episodes are also available on Apple TV.
Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com
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