Bear with me,” said Denise Plouffe as she turned the doorknob to the old Grange Hall on the outskirts of Lubec on Route 189. “You’re seeing this building at its worst. But look beyond all the clutter and you’ll see my vision.”

Vision is something Lubeckers know well. Living in one of the most easterly towns in the United States, where every house seems to have a vista across a harbor peppered with islands, they daily face some of the most beautiful visions in Maine. It’s fair to say that an artist living in one of the most remote regions of the Northeast would have to have creative vision to craft a life for herself far from the cosmopolitan centers of arts commerce and production.

Seventeen years ago, Plouffe came to Maine from Key West, Fla., for summer R&R after teaching dance through the regular school season. She didn’t intend to work in Lubec, but a vision sneaked up on her as the years passed and she continued to settle into the community. The vision, she said, is to create a small dance school and summer arts institute in the Grange Hall.

A photo of Plouffe, who is in her 50s, hangs at the top of a wide staircase in the Grange Hall. In it, she is dressed in full ballerina regalia, her arms aloft, her toes en pointe. She is pure attitude, line and elegance.

“I keep it there,” said Plouffe of the photo, which was taken in her 30s, “so people will know I really was a dancer.”

But no one who knows Plouffe (pronounced “ploof”) – or whose child has studied dance with her – doubts that Plouffe was once a professional dancer in Boston and New York City. It’s not just that she moves her hands gracefully when she talks. It’s not just that she has a dancer’s walk. Or even that she puts the emphasis on the first syllable of the word ballet.

It’s that Plouffe has a passion that only a dedicated dancer could have. You might even call her a entrepreneurial ballerina with the dilapidated Grange Hall as her business venture. Or adventure, as the case may be.

In 1997, Plouffe and her partner of 20 years Al Russell bought the 1902 Grange Hall in Lubec to house the Easternmost Institute for the Arts, a center devoted to summer workshops in the arts.

Last year, Plouffe and Russell moved the former public library building – a small, two-story, shingled structure – from downtown Lubec to the Grange Hall property several miles outside of the town center on North Lubec Road. It now sits next door to the Grange Hall and is used as a classroom for the Institute, a guest lodging for visiting instructors, and the office for Russell’s real estate business. Plouffe teaches dance in the spacious, upstairs room of the Grange Hall next door in the spring. In the winter, she is ballet mistress at The Dance Studio in Machias.

The couple has been part of the neighborhood in Lubec since they purchased a summer home in Campobello nearly 20 years ago. They typically would return to Key West, Fla., each winter, where Plouffe had a dance school and Russell was a top real estate broker. Last year, they purchased a house in Lubec and decided to move to the area year-round.

Plouffe, who danced professionally with the American Chamber Ballet, has taught dance throughout her career, and even though she considered Maine a respite from work, she was struck one year by the fact that there were no majorettes in a local Fourth of July parade in town. So she began teaching baton twirling, a skill she learned in high school.

When she bought the Grange, Plouffe began teaching ballet and tap more steadily in the area. From there, she choreographed, directed and produced shows such as “Nutcracker in a Nutshell,” an abbreviated adaptation of “The Nutcracker,” and dance recitals. This spring, she presented an adaptation of the Broadway musical “Purlie,” which the performers will reprise in September at the Grange.

“This wasn’t going to be Denise’s little dance school,” said Plouffe as she walked through the open second floor of the grange hall where the interiors are soon to receive a new coat of paint. “Turns out, it is Denise’s little dance school.”

While Plouffe’s own work focuses on dance, theater and scheduling the business, the Grange Hall complex has expanded to include contra dances every second Friday of the month with Black Socks Band, yoga classes, summer ballet (taught by an instructor from Machias), as well as weeklong and weekend workshops in travel writing, children’s book illustrating, reflexology and pastel art technique. A course in travel writing, taught by Robert Haru Fisher, an editor for Frommer’s guidebooks, will be held this weekend as well as next week, and a workshop in pastels by Marlowe deChristopher, an artist in nearby Trescott, will take place Aug. 16-18.

While Plouffe’s dance classes cost as little as $4 per session, the Institute classes can cost as much as $400. That’s steep by local standards, but the courses are predominantly attended by vacationers from outside the state.

The courses are also taught by professionals who regularly charge competitive prices in other regions of the country. Plouffe, who is always looking in Maine for professional instructors to teach more workshops at the Institute, wishes she had more local enrollment in the classes but she understands the economic squeeze in the region.

Nevertheless, Plouffe’s vision is to offer both vacationers and locals a place to expand their horizons.

The history of Grange Halls, after all, is steeped in democratic activism – originally for farmers in the late 1800s. Plouffe’s project is simply a variation with the arts as a central organizing theme.

“I didn’t expect to do this here,” said Plouffe, whose Massachusetts upbringing is still vaguely noticeable in her accent. “But I think we are helping to make this community a thriving one in the best way we can.”

For many of the local residents, Plouffe has provided cultural activity for which they would otherwise have to drive considerable distances – to Calais, Machias or beyond.

“She has added a new dimension to what’s available for both kids and adults,” said Kate Jans, a Whiting resident whose 9-year-old son studies dance with Plouffe. Jans herself has studied dance in Plouffe’s adult ballet class for beginners. “There’s a limited talent pool here, but she includes everyone and taps into whatever talent a person does have. And she has never made anyone feel she’s better than they are – even though she is. She’s an incredible dancer.”

For summer visitors, Plouffe has created an additional destination point for Lubec, one that goes beyond Campobello Island, East Quoddy Head Lighthouse, and Summer Keys, an adult piano camp for adults, founded 10 years ago when its director, Bruce Potterton of New Jersey, was captivated by Lubec in much the same way Plouffe was.

“When I read about Lubec and the Institute, I thought it was a unique seaside location,” said Jim Johnson, an Arizona resident and student in last week’s travel writing course. “The thing I like most about this area is the small shops and little businesses. We’ve enjoyed it a lot.”

Johnson, who is a technical writer, said he and his wife, an artist, hope to return to Lubec next June.

“It depends on what they have going at the Institute,” he said.

For information about Easternmost Institute for the Arts or the Lubec Grange, call 733-4966, or visit the Web site at www.grangelubec.com