In this shot you can see that only the ghost of my pool remains. Gradually, over the course of many months, the remaining materials were smuggled out with the Sunday trash - until my yard became a blank slate.
While your RECESS is under construction it is vital to keep the site masked behind a veil of secrecy.
Try to minimize the number of workers who have access to the space, and if possible, do the majority of the excavation and construction work yourself. I routinely hired vagabonds and the homeless to assist my efforts, reassured that their concerns and aspirations were only momentarily intersecting my own.
Public records and permits can be used against you. Don't get them. In a true crisis you'll be reassured that public record of your RECESS exists. Keep is secret and keep it safe.
When I started the excavation I assumed I would come up short on dirt. I was removing an enormous volume dead space where the water had once been. It seemed as though that volume would need to be made up somewhere. I was wrong; there was always more dirt than I imagined. This phase of the project involved weeks of shifting drifts of dirt and sand around my yard.
The trickiest piece was to excavate yard after yard of material without giving the neighborhood a clue that I was in the midst of a major renovation. Thank you Craigs List. Over the following weeks and months small groups of eager homeowners would descend on my property to haul away my problem bucket by bucket - and sometimes by the truck load. 
In this shot you can see that only the ghost of my pool remains. Gradually, over the course of many months, the remaining materials were smuggled out with the Sunday trash - until my yard became a blank slate. 
