Unknown - Building exterior (Photograph from an archival source: Wikipedia, submitted by Jeff Scofield/Jeff Scofield)
2022-05-20 - The building, Beaux-Arts in style, was built from 1907 to 1909 for Perry Belmont, son of August Belmont and grandson of Matthew C. Perry. The trapezoidal plot of land was purchased for $90,000, and construction cost $1.5 million. Perry Belmont served as a United States Congressman from New York, and later as the United States' ambassador to Spain. French architect Ernest-Paul Sanson designed the building, having built several chateaux in Europe; the construction architect on site was Horace Trumbauer. The house takes the form of a free-standing pavilion in the French style, with a single storey articulated with slender Ionic pilasters over a channel-rusticated basement. A balustrade with stone urns masks a discreet Mansard attic storey. In the interiors Sanson used wrought-iron fixtures from France, wood from Germany, and marble from Italy. During Belmont's lifetime, the house was used for only the winter months, when Belmont hosted lavish parties for Washington's elite. In 1919, Edward, Prince of Wales, was a guest of the Belmonts (at President Woodrow Wilson's request); there he handed out medals to various American soldiers whom Great Britain wished to honor for their roles in World War I. The Belmonts continued to use the building until 1925. Beginning in the 1920s, the Belmonts spent increasing amounts of time away from Washington, and the house was mothballed for almost a decade. Perry Belmont, a Freemason, sold the building to the General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star in 1935 for $100,000, on the condition that the Right Worthy Grand Secretary would live in the building. -Jeff Scofield
Source: From THE AMERICAN ORGANIST July 1937
Washington, District of Columbia
Eastern Star Temple
Lewis & Hitchcock 1937 2/9
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GREAT SWELL
16' Bourdon 61 8' Diapason 73
8' Diapason 61 8' Bourdon GT
8' Bourdon 12 8' Gemshorn 73
8' Salicional SW 8' Salicional 73
8' Gemshorn SW 8' Voix Celeste 61
4' Bourdon 12 4' Bourdon GT
4' Gemshorn SW 4' Gemshorn 12
2 2/3' Bourdon 7 16' Oboe 61
2' Bourdon 4 8' Oboe 12
Chimes 21 8' Vox Humana 61
4' Oboe 12
PEDAL Tremulant
16' Bourdon 32
16' Bourdon GT
8' Bourdon 12
8' Bourdon GT
16' Oboe SW 12
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