Through one man’s effort to galvanize his community, a regional gathering spot has grown in Palermo.

To find this location, visitors to the Waldo County town need to turn onto Turner Ridge Road. About 2 miles down on the left is an asymmetrical building. Behind that, another structure is going up. Across the street is a recreational complex.

These sites are, in order, the Palermo Community Center, the new American Legion hall and the Palermo Youth Activities ball diamond. The man who donated the land for all those, plus Veterans’ Park, is John Potter.

The energetic senior citizen deflects the credit to the volunteers who have helped him on these projects. He’s even putting together a book highlighting Palermo’s volunteers.

“I’m just the visionist,” Potter said modestly. “The entire town has been so responsive to what we’re doing.”

Why has Potter contributed not just the land, but lumber from his own woodlot and sawmill, to these projects? He just sees it as giving something back.

You see, Potter’s family farm was burned to the ground 40 years ago in October.

“For the next two months, volunteers showed up every weekend and built us a house and barn,” he recalled. “So what we’re doing is payback.”

The centerpiece of the Palermo Community Foundation is the community center. Potter’s carpenter son, John designed it, and construction began five years ago. The building now serves as a nerve center for the town.

Palermo residents found themselves racking up toll calls every time they went on the Net. So Potter and a group of volunteers set up Palermo On-line, an Internet access company which inhabits the top floor of the center. The service now has 130 subscribers.

Community organizations meet on the first floor. Also there is a research room, with computers that link into the Maine State Library and the University of Maine system. In the back of that room is the studio of Connie Bellet, a nationally known scrimshaw artist who also teaches art classes at the center.

In the basement is the center’s newest addition, a digital recording studio complete with a baby grand piano and isolation booths. It’s the domain of Bellet’s husband, musician Phil White Hawk.

The studio, which opened eight months ago, was the dream of the young Potter. Upon discovering that he had dyslexia, the son returned to college at age 36, but his father continued the effort to build the studio.

“John is the guiding light behind all this,” White Hawk said. “He started this whole thing, and prevailed on others to come over and contribute.”

Although there are isolation booths for both vocals and percussion, most musicians set up in the main room where the refurbished baby grand sits.

“The appropriate mikes give us a good picture, and we can control ambient sound pretty well,” White Hawk said.

In the control room, White Hawk, who did some sound mixing in Nashville in the 1970s, has two 12-channel mixing boards and a synthesizer with thousands of voices on it. He said that what this equipment does would have taken a whole room full of machinery 30 years ago.

“It doesn’t have a whole lot of bells and whistles yet,” he said. “We’re still small, but have a lot of capacity for our size. It’s just going to get better and better.”

So far, the studio has been used by opera singers and concert pianists, poets and instrumentalists. The cost is $20 an hour, but because the foundation is a nonprofit entity, the studio time would be tax deductible. At this point, a musician can leave with a mastered digital audiotape that’s ready to be taken to a CD manufacturer.

White Hawk, who has produced both of his CDs at the studio, said the idea behind the studio is that a musician can come in and record a little at a time, then take the recorded music home to further hone it.

“Here we can develop people,” he said. “We will crank out the CD when it’s ready, when it’s mature. While it’s a work in progress, we can help.”

How did White Hawk, a Cherokee, end up in Maine? He and Bellet stage a multimedia theater presentation that details the Native American contribution to the American character. They tired of taking the show up and down the Rocky Mountains, so they decided to bring it to the East Coast. Their former agent, who was living in Maine, suggested they move here.

So now, in addition to presenting his show, White Hawk is enjoying his studio work.

“This is a valuable asset not just for Palermo, but for Waldo and Kennebec counties,” he said. “Just call us, give us your requirements, and set up a time to come in.”

As the studio continues to be developed, Potter’s energies have gone into the American Legion Hall behind it. The building will be used for beano, arts and crafts, public suppers and banquets. It will be smoke- and alcohol-free, as specified by Potter in the deed. Around $90,000 has been raised for it, while another $40,000 is needed to finish it.

But Potter isn’t worried.

“I’ve reached out into the surrounding communities, and the response from businesspeople in money and materials has been fantastic,” he said.

Those interested in the studio should call White Hawk at 993-2327.