LEWISTON – Carpet the floor to cancel the echo. Pad the chairs. Build a stage, but keep it short and the performers close.

And please, no waiters.

When they created The Maple Room, musicians Taylor and Rebecca Mesple’s aim was a kind of distraction-free zone: a comfy place to present artists without the interruption of clinking glasses and random chatter.

They don’t even call their venue – which debuted Sept. 4 in an invitation-only party – a concert hall.

“We wanted it to be an intimate listening room, as opposed to a club to hang out in that happened to have music going on,” said Taylor, a pianist who has played on stage with James Taylor and Keb Mo.

“It really keeps people distracted when a performer is on stage and there’s coffee being made and the wait staff is blocking people’s view and asking questions about the menu,” Taylor said.

It’s the kind of concern the Mesples kept in mind as they began searching for a place last February, eventually settling on their 22 Park St. location in the late spring.

They designed the space to be small – the farthest seat from the performer is 25 feet away – and quiet.

They built walls between the concession area and the performance space, preserved the tall, industrial ceilings and built a curved stage for seating on three sides.

And they did it in very little time. With all their designs in hand, they began work at the start of August.

“Less than four weeks ago this was a big, empty shell with a concrete floor,” Taylor said on the morning of the club’s debut. “Nothing. No walls or anything.”

As he spoke, helpers unloaded chairs. Speakers hanging from the ceiling played loudly, then stopped abruptly. Workers removed power tools.

“I was here until 2 a.m. last night and got here at 8:30 this morning,” Taylor said. “The piano was delivered this morning. The stage lights went up last night. They painted the stage yesterday.”

The first test would begin with the first note played from the stage.

“That’s going to be the reward for all that hard work,” Rebecca said.

The later test will be measured by the numbers of people who buy tickets for the unique performance space.

“Most smaller music venues rely on alcohol sales and food sales as their main profit centers,” Taylor said.

“We wanted people to come here for the purpose of listening to music,” he said. “That was probably a little bit gutsy or risky because it presupposed that people would want to pay a pretty healthy ticket price just to hear the music.”