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BOUNTIFUL - It was hard to know what drew the louder cheers: Ty Pennington, the lady-killer carpenter of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," or the bulldozer pummeling the house that Pennington would rebuild.
The scene Monday in front of the Gordon Harrison home on 500 South befitted a rock star as the cast and crew of ABC's most popular reality show converged on a Utah house for the first time.
Hundreds of people lined the north side of the street as the show's four designers, including host Pennington (''Trading Spaces''), began a six-day, goodwill project to rebuild Harrison's home from scratch.
"We're big fans of the show," said 52-year-old Meredith Murri, who lives just around the block and was snapping pictures of the demolition. "It's wonderful what they do."
The top-10-rated, feel-good reality series has a crew of construction workers who surprise a needy family with plans to remodel - and sometimes completely rebuild - their home with the help of community volunteers.
Producers chose the 40-year-old Harrison, himself a master carpenter, for his spirit of giving: He remodeled Lisa and Darryl Gandy's kitchen for free last October with the help of neighbors even though he suffers from pancreatic cancer, a condition doctors say he has a 50-50 chance of surviving.
"He said, 'Darryl, I'm going to build you and Lisa a new kitchen.' He always said that," said Lisa Gandy about what Harrison told her husband. "Then, he was lying in the hospital after his second surgery, watching those home improvement shows, when he said to himself, 'I'm going to do it. I'm going to rebuild the Gandys' kitchen.' "
Gandy and their neighbors Bill and Tammy Gould nominated Harrison's family for the series.
"Because he was so sick, and no money was coming in, this is a way to show how much we love [Harrison and his family] and appreciate them," she said.
No air date has been set for the Bountiful episode, which will be shown sometime during the 2005-2006 season.
"He just represents so much of what our show is about," said Eduardo Xol (pronounced "soul"), one of the series' designers.
The show's producers and cast surprised the Harrisons on Saturday, and flew the family to San Diego for a week so the crew can finish the house. The big "reveal" will happen next Saturday when the Harrisons return and see their new home, which is expected to have a gourmet kitchen (Lisa has started a catering business) and a garage with a workshop for Gordon.
In the end, more than 400 employees of Salt Lake City-based Okland Construction and 50 other subcontractors will have worked on the house, said project director Megan Jones, a fan of the show who called producers when she heard they would film in Utah.
"It's amazing how many people stepped up," she said, adding that everyone from electricians to cabinetmakers and plumbers help with the project. "Everyone wanted to get involved."
Monday morning, the first shoot for the episode involved hundreds of cheering construction workers, wearing blue "Extreme Makeover" T-shirts and yellow construction hats, marching down 500 South toward the house at the head of two turquoise bulldozers - code-named the "Braveheart" shot by the TV crew.
Meanwhile, a crowd held back by steel barricades cheered every time a bulldozer cracked branches off the trees in front of the house or when Pennington swooped above them in the carriage of a South Davis fire truck, shooting the crowd with his camcorder.
"He's so handsome," gushed 38-year-old Melanie Corbin, a second-grade teacher who drove from Ogden to get a glimpse of Pennington. "He has good style, and he has such enthusiasm."
Which explains why much of the crowd was made up of either middle-aged women wearing hospital garb (Lakeview Hospital is just a block away), or burly construction workers who just wanted to lend a hand.
"I always said Bountiful is a big, small town," said Bountiful City Manager Tom Hardy, who watched the commotion. "This can showcase what kind of people we have here."