A mile north of the White House, John Russell Pope built the headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry as a copy of the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Cornerstone laid 18 October 1911, dedicated exactly four years later to the day. It won Pope the Architectural League of New York’s Gold Medal in 1917. Sphinxes flank the steps. The library inside opened in 1870 and was the first public library in Washington DC, and it holds the second largest collection of Robert Burns material anywhere outside Scotland, which is a genuinely strange thing to find in a Masonic temple. 1733 16th Street NW, Dupont Circle.
Washington, DC
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