The film crew planned to go to the Canal Walk, Chicopee City Hall and the figure of a giant waving statue outside the Plantation Inn New England on Burnett Road.
Tabitha Avery, left from Chicopee, and Linda Benya a producer from HGTV's House Hunters International get ready for the taping of a segment for a show featuring Tabitha and her husband James, on their move to Barcelona Spain.
CHICOPEE – For local couple Tabitha M. and James Avery, the search for their dream digs in sunny Barcelona began Saturday in snowy Chicopee .
Or at least that’s the way it’ll be portrayed on HGTV’s “House Hunters International.” The show had a crew in Chicopee Saturday to interview Tabitha Avery, her friends and family and film a few establishing shots of the couple’s hometown to serve as the “before” portion of an upcoming episode.
The film crew planned to go to the Canal Walk, Chicopee City Hall and the figure of a giant waving statue outside the Plantation Inn New England on Burnett Road.
It’s unknown when the show will air.
Next week, it’s on to Barcelona where the couple is living and working now and will remain for two years.
“They pay us,” Tabitha Avery said Saturday as the film crew set up at the home of her in-laws, Judith and Henry Avery. “But that’s not really the reason to do it. It’s really to document our experience. It’ll be something we can show our children when we have them.”
James Avery didn’t make this trip home. He’ll only be filmed in Spain.
Both Tabitha and James Avery work for Vistaprint, an online supplier of promotional material like business cards and t-shirts. The company is based in the Netherlands but has offices in Lexington, where both James and Tabitha Avery used to work while living nearby in Billerica. The couple first found out that they were going to Barcelona late in 2011.
“It’s such a beautiful city,” Tabitha Avery said. “The food is wonderful. The people are so nice.”
And the weather, The average temperature in February is 50 degrees.
They have a temporary place in Barcelona and have been looking for a longer-term rental for some time.
“It’s in process,” Tabitha Avery said.
The show is cagey about exactly how far along subjects are in the house-hunting process when the film crew shows up, said Linda Benya, an independent producer working under contract with Leopard Films USA, the producers of “House Hunters International”.
“Because of the time it takes, most people have already picked out a home,” she said. “We film them looking at it and two others they considered. But we don’t like to talk about it, because part of the fun is trying to guess which house they will pick.”
Benya, based in New York City, won’t film the Averys in Spain. That’ll probably be a British crew, she said. She’ll be in Ecuador next week on another shoot.
While most people watch the show for the exotic locals, Benya said the segments shot in the subject’s hometowns are important.
“We are telling this couple’s story,” she said.
Judith and Henry Avery were part of the shoot Saturday, as were Tabitha’s parents, Wayne A. Laflamme Sr. and Theresa A. Laflamme and a number of other friends and relatives. Tabitha Avery grew up in Holyoke, James in Chicopee.
“This is our home base,” Tabitha Avery said.