While the big draw was Sarah Keenleyside, Jo Smeeth and Kate Lavender, partners and collaborators on Ms. Keenleyside’s new HGTV series The County, those in attendance, gathered in part to mark International Women’s Day, almost stole the show.

The Royal Hotel’s Breakfast Club, in case you didn’t know, is the place to see and be seen for entrepreneurial women in the arts, real estate, hospitality, and small businesses of Prince Edward County. From Sylvia Cook, the owner of Aerecura Sustainable Builders, to Lisa Messina of The Messina Movement, everyone who is anyone was there.

After a Royal breakfast and before the discussion among the County’s own trio of top-tier designers, host Jasmine Baker invited audience members to note anything interesting they were working on.

A deluge followed.

Janna Smith, Director of County Arts, announced Hotel Confidential, a collaboration with The Royal to transform the hotel’s rooms into a series of artist’s studios over the weekend of April 17-19. Nancy Griffin reminded everyone of her Women, Worth and Wellness speaker series, Pearls of Wisdom. The series, along with just about everything else in the County, is sponsored by Libby Crombie of Royal LePage, who was sitting next to her. Heather Braaten, Artistic Director at County Stage, announced that tickets to the latest world class, County made, season of repertory were now on sale. Dawn Yellow of the Yellow Studio told of a Seconds Sale on April 4. Lisa Marie Lachance announced a Queer Prom at 100 Acre Wood on 21 April. She is seeking great clothes for onsite dressing up. And writer Lauren Richards noted her read-all-about-it piece on the new HGTV show was in the spring Watershed.

All that was before the discussion, also moderated by Ms. Baker, about The County. Ms. Keenleyside, who moved here to be with husband and Juno-award winner Justin Rutledge a few years ago, said it was conceived as “a love letter to the County.”

“It’s not just a setting, it’s a character in the show,” she enthused. The idea was “to give people a taste of the magic we have all discovered.”

With Ms. Keenleyside in the lead, Jo Smeeth of INDA Design serves as project manager on the show’s multiple renovations, and Kate Lavender, of Kate Lavender Design, as a designer. Along the way, many County residents, artisans, business owners, and tradespeople appear. 

All three happily described the six months of taping, which wrapped in January, as “total chaos.” 

Rogers, which owns HGTV, wanted the show to portray “the aspirational life that so many people want,” as Ms. Keenleyside put it. The result is a glistening concoction of houses, landscapes and people at both familiar and new locations. It showcases “the goldmine of art there is here.” Ms. Keenleyside’s own 1860s farmhouse reno features prominently, as well as The Claramount Club and some of the County’s many historic homes.

Ms. Keenleyside, who fell in love with old houses renovating the red brick Victorians of Toronto, marveled at the often much older housing stock here. She has now established her own design studio, SKDS, in the County.

“It’s a docu-style show so it looks simple, but it wasn’t,” she said, describing the long days and multiple takes required to portray what is supposed to appear impromptu real life.

Spontaneous or rehearsed, it’s all unmissable. The ten-episode series launches on HGTV Friday 3 April at 8pm.