NEW HAVEN — William Howard Taft was not born there; he did not live or even die there. But for a few years, the 27th president did own the house at 111 Whitney Avenue in New Haven, and that association has conferred on the structure a certain historical gravitas.

Now a group of current and former Yale students is betting the building can do the same for the William F. Buckley Jr. Program, which seeks to “expand political discourse on campus and to expose students to often-unvoiced views.” (It is a goal Mr. Buckley himself might have expressed, albeit with more syllables.)

Thanks to $500,000 from a single, unnamed donor, the group will soon move into the William H. Taft Mansion — with a two-year lease and an option to buy — and attempt the transformation from a local undergraduate venture into a conservative policy institute with a presence on the national political landscape.

Mr. Buckley wrote prolifically, founded The National Review, hosted “Firing Line” and even ran for mayor of New York, but to some he remains first and foremost the author of “God and Man at Yale,” a call for the restoration of what he saw as traditional values at his alma mater. That call resonated with Lauren Noble, a member of the class of 2011 and the group’s executive director. “If you look at the political affiliations of the Yale faculty,” she said, “if you look at the slant of the courses being taught, if you look at the speakers who are otherwise being invited to campus, all of that leans to the left.”