Cornish — Opera North has received a $150,000 federal grant to renovate the main house on Blow-Me-Down Farm, across from the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, in its first tangible step toward creating a “national park for the arts.”

Funds from the Northern Border Regional Commission, a federal-state development partnership in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York, will cover close to half of the estimated $350,000 cost of renovations at the farmhouse at the site between Route 12A and the Connecticut River.

New Hampshire’s congressional delegation announced the grant in a news release last week as part of a $2.2 million distribution to the state that will include funds to revamp two buildings in downtown Claremont.

The improvements in Cornish likely will take at least a year to complete and are only the first part of a larger plan to create an arts center of regional significance on the national park-owned land, according to Evans Haile, general director of Opera North.

Haile on Monday said the Lebanon-based group will partner with the National Park Service to “create a national park for the arts that will celebrate not only the musical arts, but also the visual arts, and that will be a unique destination for the area — and not only for the area, but for the whole Northeast.”

Once the renovations are complete, the Charles Beaman house, named after the attorney who brought celebrated sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to the area in 1885, will serve as headquarters for Opera North’s summer operations in Cornish, Haile said.

Opera North will not be leaving its offices in Lebanon, he said.

The summer events in Cornish began last month, when hundreds of people visited the farm for shows by Opera North and other performers.

John Hammond, chairman of the Cornish Selectboard, said the traffic and parking arrangements for that event and those in the future had provoked some concern among town Planning Board members — although, he added, there appears to be enough room on the property for visiting cars.

Hammond said local officials had appreciated Opera North and park officials’ recent visit to the Selectboard office to describe their plans, even though, he said, the federal government is exempt from some town regulations that otherwise would apply to such renovations.

“Technically, they can pretty much do as they choose,” he said. “They have come in and discussed it with us, so we appreciate the opportunity to do that.”

Haile said that Opera North anticipated using the Beaman house for offices, technical support and backstage purposes, as well as outside events and receptions.

“As the work continues, we hope to build partnerships with art organizations and nonprofits throughout the region interested in working together to offer a diversity of art-related programs at the farm, from painting and sculpture to dance and drama and even crafts and historic preservation,” Christina Marts, deputy director at the Saint-Gaudens site, said in an email.

“That work, we hope, will also include the rehabilitation of the farm’s other seven structures” — including a caretaker’s cottage, a barn, a dance hall, blacksmith shops, sheds and an 1850s Victorian playhouse — “to support these diverse programs, preserve the site as a gem of the Cornish Arts Colony, and contribute to the region as a cultural destination,” Marts said.

Down the road in Claremont, funds from the regional commission — just under $150,000 — are going toward renovations of two downtown buildings.

Those buildings are 56 Opera House Square, which has been vacant for more than 20 years, according to the city’s planning and development director, and the “Farwell Block,” also on Opera House Square.

Nancy Merrill, Claremont’s director of planning and development, said city officials hoped to open the unused second floor of the Farwell Block to expanded offices for the Sullivan County Oral Health Collaborative.

The vacant building is slated to become a community arts center, Merrill said.

All told, the combined project — combined because the two buildings share a wall and will also share an elevator — may cost as much as $1.8 million, she said. Local officials are seeking a $500,000 community development block grant and other ways to round out the financing.

“We think this is a great project, and we’re going to work hard to put the other funding pieces together and are really grateful to Northern Border for stepping up,” Merrill said.

Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or at 603-727-3242.