Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons

Designed by Asmus and Clark in 1925, the Classical Revival style Grand Masonic Lodge is notable for its Greek Ionic columns along the west side of the building and the Ionic pilasters on the south side, which you see from Broadway. The roof structure is in the form of a Greek temple, demonstrating the ability of Beaux-arts architects of the period to employ classicism in innovative ways. Nashville’s architecture came of age between 1900 and 1930, and much of the downtown landscape we see today was built during this period. Asmus and Clark designed a number of buildings in the area, but Asmus is most famous for the Bennie Dillon Building, the Nashville Trust, the Berger Building, and the buildings he designed for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897.

The Lodge was built in 1926 for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, whose Tennessee chapter was founded in 1841. The organization's lodge was first established in a private home on the same site until the membership decided to raze the existing house to construct the building you see here. It was later known as the Scottish Rite Temple until 1937, when it was purchased by the Free and Accepted Masons to become the home of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee. The building today houses the offices of the Freemasons, a 1,500-seat auditorium, and a Freemasonry museum, which is open to the public. If you enter for a tour, make sure to take note of its marble floors, its grand stairwell, and its museum, whose walls are hung with portraits of Grand Masters including President Andrew Jackson.

As you leave the Masonic Lodge, look to your right up Seventh Ave. North to see the Barbershop Harmony Society and Holston House hotel, formerly the James Robertson Apartments. Continue in the same direction until you see Hume-Fogg Academic High School—the next stop on your right.