Mount Vernon Cultural Walk: Grand Masonic Temple

Be Here Stories

The Mount Vernon Cultural Walk is created by The Baltimore National Heritage Area (BNHA), which promotes, preserves, and enhances Baltimore's historic and cultural legacy and natural resources for current and future generations. A site-by-site walking tour of this and other destinations is available at www.https://bnha.visit.zone/ Located at 225 North Charles Street Transcript: The Grand Lodge of Maryland Freemasons, founded in 1787, opened its Grand Masonic Temple in 1869. The magnificent three-story marble building of French and Italian Renaissance design reflected Baltimore’s new post-Civil War prosperity. Two major fires in the next four decades served only to make the building even grander. Renovations added more floors, with the Beaux-Arts top story constructed in 1909. Inside, the building became ever more elaborate. Its ten meeting rooms, used for Masonic rituals, included a Tudor-style chamber modeled on Scotland’s Rosslyn Chapel and a room meant to resemble an Egyptian temple. Black Baltimoreans founded their own Masonic chapter in 1825. Six years later, several Grand Lodge members were severely reprimanded for fraternizing with their Black counterparts, a “gross violation of duty.” They were forgiven after expressing “sincere contrition.” The Grand Lodge Masons moved to the suburbs in 1994. The adjoining Tremont Plaza Hotel purchased the temple in 1998, intending to restore it. Meanwhile, City officials planned to condemn the structure in order to build a parking lot. After negotiations saved the building from demolition, it underwent a $14 million restoration and opened in 2005 as one of the city’s most opulent event spaces.