The years have not been kind to the Homer House.

The Homer House is so named for the American artist Winslow Homer, who called ithis home and did much of his work there. The house was in fact owned by Homer’s uncle, a wealthy Boston merchant. Today it is owned by the Belmont Woman’s Club, which has taken up the cause of lovingly maintaining the Homer House. It sits just off the center of town, where it plays host to various galas, exhibits and events in Belmont.

“We call it the jewel of the Belmont historic district,” said Susan Smart, who volunteers with and sits on the board of the Belmont Woman’s Club. “It’s on the National Register of Historic Places as part of what we call the Pleasant Street Historic District. It’s been a landmark in town for generations.”

So you can imagine the distress the Woman’s Club must have felt this past winter, when severe weather tore chunks of wood and metal off the roof of the home’s distinctive cupola and created a safety hazard that threatened to shutter the Homer House during the warmer months ahead.

Unless that roof could be fixed – and fast – then the club would have to cancel its annual June Strawberry Festival tour and a planned exhibit, “Winslow Homer’s Civil War.”

Fortunately, the Belmont Savings Bank Foundation stepped in with $2,000 to wrap and restore the historic home’s cupola. The charitable arm of Belmont Savings Bank has given more than $225,000 to nonprofits and educational institutions in its market area, and even though $2,000 seems like a drop in the bucket, it was a big deal to the Belmont Woman’s Club.

While the house needs more renovations, the bank’s grant has at least allowed the club to keep the Homer House open for the summer.

“The bank really has made it possible for us to continue functioning,” Smart said. “It would have been terrible not to have the school children come, not to be open to the public this summer.”

“Towns that have these historic sites are always struggling for ways to maintain them. They typically don’t create revenue, and a lot of towns in New England have wonderful old homes like this. Some of them just lay fallow. No one wants to maintain them, and the next thing you know, they’re condos,” said Robert M. Mahoney, president and CEO of Belmont Savings Bank. “That’s not going to happen to the Homer House, for sure.”