Grand Lodge Room

GRAND LODGE ROOM

The most frequently-heard comment from those who view the newly-renovated Grand Lodge Room is, "they don’t build auditoriums like this anymore". That’s right, they do not! Over a four-month period in 1986, a relatively drab, early 1900s meeting place, seating 1,200 people, was transformed into a colorful, eye-catching hall. Fifty young Michaelangelos, many of them working on their backs on scaffolding high above the floor, performed this artistic transformation using tiny brushes, hundreds of gallons of colorful paints and glazes, as well as some 54,000 sheets of Dutch metal gold leaf.

The overhead Tiffany-style, rear-lighted windows in the ceiling had to be taken down, plate by plate, reinforced and returned to position. The pipes of the magnificent organ in the balcony were painted in bright colors to fit the overall artistic scheme.

Truly, this is a magnificent hall in which to hold Grand Lodge sessions and meetings of other major Masonic bodies. The acoustics are excellent, and the hall has been used by recording firms for record-making.

Every inch of decorative plasterwork had to be cleaned and restored. All the leaded stained glass windows in the ceiling had to be cleaned. The huge Grand Lodge Room was the first to be renovated. In the early stages the room was filled from floor to ceiling with scaffolding as the artists began the long and tedious process of bringing it to its beauty and magnificence.

The Grand Lodge Room rents for $2,100 a day, and the Masons are now trying to figure out what to charge for the use of the elaborately decorated lodge meeting rooms that can accommodate 150 people.