Lyme -- The intense, weeklong house-building project under way in Lyme may make for riveting television, but it also presented a head-scratcher for town officials:

Could they accommodate Extreme Makeover: Home Edition's need for secrecy in a way that didn't compromise their responsibility to conduct town affairs openly and in a manner that safeguarded the town's best interests?

Officials say they did deviate from routine procedure, but not in any way that violated the spirit or letter of the law. And while some officials may have felt discomfort about straying from the standard course of behavior, they concluded that the benefits -- particularly helping a deserving local family -- were too great to ignore.

“I'm absolutely confident there was nothing illegal in what we did,” said Simon Carr, chairman of the Board of Selectmen.

“If this was anything but a charitable issue we would have followed usual procedure,” he said.

The ABC reality TV show on Monday announced that Elena and Jay Marshall would get a new home built on their Baker Hill Road property. The family has eight children, including Cameron, 10, who last year was diagnosed with leukemia. Jay Marshall works as assistant director of Mount Prospect Academy, a residential school in Plymouth, N.H., for teenage boys who have had difficulties in other schools. Elena Marshall is a stay-at-home mom.

The show, which chooses families who have contributed to their communities despite hardships, flew the Marshalls to Disney World on Tuesday and yesterday demolished their house, garage and foundation and began 106 hours of building, which will end Sunday.

The family is scheduled to return to their new home on Monday.

Their old house had a cracked foundation and water problems that caused mold, a contaminated well and a fireplace that leaked carbon monoxide. In December, Cameron Marshall raised $3,500 for the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth to buy refrigerators for the hospital rooms of children whose families come to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center facility from afar. In addition, the boy and his family helped raise another $100,000 for CHaD.

Yesterday the medical center held a one-mile walk called “Extreme Cam's Course” on trails at its Lebanon property, billed as a way “to honor the Marshall family.” The event, which brought out upwards of 400 workers and others, will provide footage for the TV show. The walk and a visit to a CHaD unit by Makeover celebrities were filmed for the episode featuring the Marshalls, which will air sometime this season. Donations from the walk raised $25,000, said a hospital spokesman.

TV show representatives and others have said the Marshalls won't be the only beneficiaries of reality TV's week in the Upper Valley. A blood drive, collection for local food pantries and a raffle to raise money for the Claremont Soup Kitchen are scheduled.

“You'll see some goodness springboard off” the Marshall project, Diane Cormen, a senior producer on the show, said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. “This is not about helping just one family. … We can make a difference in communities as well.”

In addition, Cormen said Makeover crews spend $65,000 to $75,000 a day in the Upper Valley on items such as food, lodging, gas and rental vehicles.

Carr said CHaD will also benefit from the TV show's national publicity.

He said the town's actions to help the show had the selectmen and Zoning Board of Adjustment being less than forthcoming in public notices and the selectmen waiving application and building fees of more than $900. They've waived fees in other instances, also for charitable reasons, Carr said.

He said he had also delayed posting minutes on the town's Web site from his board's meeting last Thursday at which board members voted to waive fees and approve closing Baker Hill Road to all but residents and TV crews. Carr said the town still complied with the law because the minutes were available at town offices.

Still, said the chairman, “Quite frankly, it's embarrassing. When I got elected, one of the things I was looking for was more openness.”

The project's application to the Zoning Board listed Rodrick Finley, an engineer from Pathways Consulting in Lebanon, and Finley's home address in Lyme as the applicant. The Marshall's address was listed as the property location and a space for the property owner’s name was left blank.

Town Planning and Zoning Administrator David Robbins said he would typically fill in the blank space, however he didn't this time. Robbins said the owner's name wasn’t important because the house’s address was listed. With the exception of the missing name, “there was really no difference” in how the matter was treated by the zoning board, he said.

At its meeting last week, ZBA members unanimously approved two special exceptions and two variances to allow replacement of the Marshall's septic system, construction of a new well, burial of a propane tank and addition of a roof over the new home's front door.

The three-bedroom, two-bathroom house demolished yesterday had been valued at $278,000 in town records. The house was nine years old and had 2,100 square feet of living space. The new house will have six bedrooms and 3,000 square feet, according to zoning documents. More than 1,000 volunteers and 500 construction workers from more than 200 area businesses are working on the project, which will use donated materials to build and furnish the house.

The state was asked to waive a $300 septic system fee for the project but declined to do so, said Robbins. But the state is helping with a problem the TV crew has been having: No cell phone service on Baker Hill Road.

“These people can't imagine a world without cell phones,” said Selectman Charles Ragan.

Makeover producers had asked Verizon Wireless to install a temporary cell tower on Baker Hill Road. As of yesterday, that hadn't happened.

Ragan said Lyme Fire Chief Michael Hinsley was going to call Gov. John Lynch yesterday to ask Lynch to call Verizon. Lynch spokesman Colin Manning yesterday said the state Bureau of Emergency Communication “has been in contact with Verizon and they're working to resolve the situation.” Manning wouldn't say whether the governor had made the request.

Makeover representatives have said there were five Upper Valley finalists for the show. But Carr says he doubts that because of the time TV producers spent talking with him, Hinsley and the police chief a month before Monday's announcement picking the Marshalls. The family knew they were finalists, but had to keep that information secret.

Carr said show representatives had also talked in advance of Monday's announcement with people at the Lyme Country Store, various suppliers and Baker Hill Road neighbors.

“Unless Extreme Makeover was doing a phenomenal snow job, it was clear we were the town,” he said.

But a Lebanon woman had been hoping her family would be the recipient of reality TV largess.

Kay Tolbert, who sent a letter to Extreme Makeover asking it to renovate her house, said a neighbor saw an Extreme Makeover van and someone walking up and down her Franklin Street neighborhood on Friday. The neighbor had also applied to Makeover to be on the show, Tolbert said.

“It was kind of a false hope,” she said of the sighting.

In addition, Tolbert said she heard from friends that the TV van was seen last week in Hartford and Canaan. Town officials from Hartford and Canaan yesterday said they had had no contact with show producers. Lebanon officials couldn't be reached for contact.

Tolbert and her husband are raising a granddaughter, 3, whose mother is in prison. The family has a very small house without closets and bathroom plumbing that needs work. Still, Tolbert says she's happy for the Marshalls and will volunteer to work on their new house.

“Like my husband and I always say, there's some people who have it worse off than we do.”

Susan J. Boutwell can be reached at sboutwell@vnews.com or at (603) 727-3248.