You’ve almost certainly seen the shingled building, sitting obvious yet unobtrusive between the dentist and the hair salon on Upper Main street in Edgartown. Perhaps you have heard the skinny: that it’s a dance studio built by a fabulously wealthy man so his daughter, an aspiring ballerina, would have a place to take private lessons for two weeks every summer. According to this tale, the hotel-sized building sits empty the other 50 weeks of the year, and the daughter gave up dancing to study political science anyway.

As with most Vineyard rumors, there is a bit of truth to this, but the real story is much more interesting. The building (actually, buildings) spent a few years as the summer home of Stiefel and Students, choreographer Ethan Stiefel’s training program. Yes, he trained investment banker Thomas Melone’s daughters. Yes, it was built by Mr. Melone for his daughters’ summer dance studies. Yes, one daughter, Brittany, switched to study political science, but that was due to injury, not the whims of a debutante.

Since she stopped dancing, the buildings have not sat empty — indeed, what has been going on there almost defies belief.

Ashley, the eldest of Mr. Melone’s three daughters, decided to use the space in a manner true to its original intentions: to educate young performers by letting them train with professionals when regular dance programs were on leave; and also to encourage professionals to come here for residencies while developing new work. In 2007, the Vineyard Arts Project was officially created.

“We are really only a year and a half old, and I’m the only employee, really, if you can even call me that!” says Ms. Melone, who is extending the project’s scope beyond dance. “Our main mission is to foster and support all the performing arts through professional residencies.”

It is deceptively understated on the outside — there is no signifier to its identity, only a quiet “215” (the street number) over the door. It resembles an office building posing as an old New England home. It’s not. Built in 2004, the front block is a dormitory for professional companies in residence — but it doesn’t feel like a dormitory. With hardwood floors everywhere, lots of light and all the standard traditional New England decorative trimmings throughout, all floors of bedrooms feel like part of a large Vineyard house. The first floor kitchen/dining/living space also feels like a spacious private home.

A roomy wooden deck and covered breezeway lead to the back half of the building, the main dance studio. It’s probably large enough to hold the opening scene of the musical The Lion King. This studio has state-of-the-art everything. A sprung-wood floor is covered by a top-notch Marley floor. An Estonia grand piano sits in a corner, but isn’t being used on this day. Instead, the top-of-the-line sound system is bellowing out classical organ music into this huge open space, full of natural light from windows on three sides (the fourth wall is all mirror). The sound fills the high cathedral ceilings, the exposed post-and-beam construction held together by industrial-strength ironwork.

A gentle, serious Frenchman, Benjamin Millepied, directs a dozen French and American dancers through graceful, fluid choreography, repeating sections over and over again. Beneath this studio is a smaller one (which is, for the record, still quite large) containing an upright piano — and a state of the art sound system. And a top-line Marley floor over a sprung-wood floor.

As if that wasn’t impressive enough, a brick path leads from the deck across a spacious private lawn, to a second building that contains ... pretty much everything in the first building, all over again, including another titanic, magnificent dance studio with natural light, grand piano, sound system and cathedral ceilings. And oh, yes, this building also has a room full of Pilates equipment, a costume shop, and an aromatic cedar costume-storage room.

“We built the space with the artists’ and students’ best interest in mind,” Ms. Melone says, with stunning understatement. “Over the years, as various artists came to work and create there, I saw how well everyone worked and how thrilled everyone was to be in such a special place, [which was] one of the reasons I decided to start Vineyard Arts Project and begin to expand our programming to involve more artists.”

Ms. Melone’s background is in dance, and her contacts are primarily in dance, but she has been successfully reaching out to other performing artists; the space has housed theatre rehearsals and opera workshops, too. Now she is exploring a collaboration with ArtFarm Enterprises, a new nonprofit theatre company created by Edgartown native Brian Ditchfield and his wife, actress Brooke Hardman.

“Our missions really align,” says Ms. Melone of ArtFarm’s approach to self-sustainability and creating new work. “We really don’t have anything pinned down in terms of specifics, but both of our interests lie in creating new work and supporting young artists who are working in theatre. We are speaking about doing a collaborative residency next summer.”

Asked if there are other Island groups Vineyard Arts Project has considered collaborating with, she explains: “What’s important for us right now is to grow organically and not too quickly, and what I’m really trying to do is develop the artists who are coming back year after year. If the ArtFarm collaboration goes as we hope it will, that should continue for many years.”

Mr. Millepied, a New York City Ballet principal, is now in his second residency here with his pickup troupe, Danses Concertantes. He is creating a new piece with members of the American Ballet Theater and the Paris Opera Ballet — for those of you not up on your ballet trivia, that means some of the finest dancers in the world are pas-de-deuxing next to the dentist’s office. The piece will premiere at the Cannes International Dance Festival and then tour through France and Germany in December.

“Working and living together in such a pleasant space is really conducive to creativity,” says Amanda McKerrow, ballet master for Benjamin Millepied and Dances Concertantes. Mr. Millepied agrees. “It’s a big help to have housing and workspace all together,” he explains. “People focus – you don’t just go off on your own every night.”

When he puts together a new piece in New York city, where he lives, he has to pay for housing for anyone coming from out-of-town, as well as paying for the studio space itself. “They’ve been very generous,” he says of the Vineyard project. “I don’t pay for a studio, I don’t pay for housing ... it’s incredible.”

Christopher Wheeldon’s Morphoses company on Tuesday will have a five-week residency, and three of the dancers were here as Stiefel students years ago. “It is thrilling for me to see our education programs come full circle as they return as professionals,” Ms. Melone says.

The summer season also featured a Musical Theatre Laboratory for exceptionally talented teenagers, including this year, one Vineyarder, Tessa Permar. “We’re currently working with directors [Broadway veterans Scott Wise and Elizabeth Parkinson] who are workshop-oriented, as opposed to performance-oriented, but we do a final performance in the studio space on the last day; also this year there were a number of pieces done at the Whaling Church, including excerpts from a new musical that is now going on to Broadway.”

So what does it take to qualify for a residency at Vineyard Arts Project? “We look for people who are working on something totally new, whether it’s in dance or in theatre,” says Ms. Melone. “We don’t have a formal application process. In dance, all the choreographers I’ve worked with are working with the best dancers and creating the highest quality work, really in the world, which is amazing to bring them all to the Vineyard. With theatre we are going for the same thing.

“I know that’s sort of subjective when you’re talking about the arts, but it’s important, especially now, in these times, to focus on having the most meaningful work created, and put out there for everyone to be exposed to,” she says. To that end, many of the residencies include public performances.

To sustain the project the space is sometimes rented to arts groups. The annual Operafest is one example; another is the Vineyard Playhouse, which rented rehearsal space and housing for Sondheim collaborator James Lepine.

“We’re trying to strike a balance between renters and our own projects,” says Ms. Melone. At present there is a rental pending from October all the way through May. “I can’t give any details, but if it did happen it would be wonderful for us because it would be used all throughout the winter and then we’d start again in June, hopefully with ArtFarm.”

Ultimately she hopes to see Vineyard Arts Project-associated residencies and programs use the space 12 months of the year.

“Simply put, Vineyard Arts Project and the studio/housing compound are products of my entire family’s deep-seated commitment to supporting and sustaining the live arts and arts education.”