BROWNFIELD – Need saved Carol Noonan.

Her creation of an intimate concert hall on a dirt road in a secluded Maine hamlet should have failed. Instead, she and her venture, the Stone Mountain Arts Center, have flourished.

“It wasn’t a choice, like, ‘I hope audiences will come,'” Noonan said, still unsettled by all that she and husband Jeff Flagg risked when they opened their doors in August 2006. “I knew they’d have to come or we’d lose our home.”

As the center prepares to kick off its third year, national acts are signed to appear on Noonan’s humble stage in Brownfield, a community so small it doesn’t even have a stoplight.

Voices of the 1960s such as Judy Collins, Mavis Staples and the Smothers Brothers are scheduled for shows here. Bluegrass singer Dan Tyminski, the Alison Krauss sideman and the voice on the hit, “Man of Constant Sorrow,” is slated to play in June. Marc Cohn and John Hiatt are coming in August.

All will play on the 21-inch-tall stage before an audience of no more than 200 people. There are no bouncers. No Jumbotron. The front row sits so close performers can literally reach out and touch the people in their seats.

“The audience gets the community feeling that you can’t get in a big hall,” said Noonan. “You get to see their faces. You get to watch their hands move.”

Her aim was to create the perfect venue, for audiences and performers.

Noonan knows both sides.

The Massachusetts native made a name for herself in the late 1980s and 1990s as the powerhouse singer behind the local band Knots and Crosses.

The group broke up in the mid-1990s. For another decade, Noonan continued to tour and make CDs.

By 2005, she was tired.

“The last few years I toured, the 200-seat venues were crappy or you played in a huge hall,” she said. She liked neither.

Noonan and Flagg hatched their plan: build a venue in their backyard.

The couple mortgaged their remote farmhouse to pay for a year of construction. A crane lifted their barn and set it on a foundation in the backyard. Craftsmen including Flagg went to work, transforming the barn into a showpiece.

Three years later, it resembles a cathedral. A latticework of wooden timbers hold the ceiling aloft. Cabaret-style seats sit on the hardwood floor. And above the stage, long windows face a wooded hillside, with panes separated by limb-like supports.

On concert nights, white Christmas lights illuminate birches painted on the wall behind the stage.

“I felt like we’d make it so great, people would come,” Noonan said.

They had to be willing to travel an hour or more, she figured. So the acts had better be good. National names would be best.

“If it was more than special, then people would travel,” Noonan said. “Nothing is nearby for us who live here. We’re used to driving.”

She headlined the first concert. The second was a biggie, bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley. He is most well-known to modern audiences for his place on the “O Brother, Where Art Thou” movie soundtrack.

The show sold out. It took another six months before that became a regular occurrence. She used her connections to bring the first names. She used word of mouth to keep the acts and the audiences coming back.

“You have to kind of train people to see live music again,” she said. Folks are becoming more and more content with takeout food and a DVD.

Personal touches

She made each show into an event.

Dinner is part of the routine, with a menu of gourmet pizza and salads, huge desserts, wine and beer.

“People don’t want to go to Portland and fight the traffic, find a place to eat and be with the rest of the cattle.

“It’s hard to get here, but it’s easy to park,” she said. “We’re very mom and pop. When you come, you’re very personally handled.”

Before a recent classical music concert, hostess Marlies Owinga greeted each person at the door, asked them where they’d like to sit and led them to tables.

Noonan and Owinga knew many by name.

A similar ethic works behind the scenes. Noonan aims to pamper each performer who makes the trek to Brownfield. The dressing room sports satellite TV, a piano, a stereo with lots of records, a pool table and abundant food.

Little things that only a performer might think of – such as an ironing board, Tums, and throat teas – are kept in stock.

“I feel like we’re asking a lot of them here, so we try to make them really happy,” she said.

Keeping the performers happy helps them make the decision to return.

Kathy Mattea’s tour bus got stuck coming up Noonan’s road and she had to spend the night in the bus. But she’s scheduled to come back in October.

Meanwhile, Noonan’s neighborhood has remained unchanged. Folks seem unfazed by the tour buses.

“Nobody really notices anything up here,” she said. “I’ve never had a neighbor drive by and peek. They all trusted me that I wouldn’t have Metallica up here.”

For information on the Stone Mountain Arts Center including upcoming performances and tickets, see www.stonemountainartscenter.com