Darla visits the Masons...

This past weekend I went on a tour of the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia for my hub's 30th birthday. He'd be wanting to go for some time now and so he made it part of his birthday extravaganza. I had no idea what to expect but was really and truly amazed by the architecture and decorative details. Each room was modeled after architecture from a different place/time period and these details was painstakingly replicated. The most amazing part to me was that many of the architectural elements were plaster and faux finished to look like wood, tile, marble, etc. You would never know just by looking at them...

The ceiling of this room was made of carved (or cast?) plaster tiles...incredible...

This was the Egyptian room...

All of the ceilings in each room were over the top...
coffered, painted and included insane light fixtures.

Egyptian room podium...
(with what the tour guide mentioned were Greek style sphinxes,
rather than Egyptian style...hmmmm...)

A fabulous view of the hall, which featured a cast iron staircase...
(Hub read they cast it in place on the website but our tour guide
didn't know a thing about that..dingbat.)

All the "wooden" ceiling beams in here were actually faux finished plaster, painted with turkey feathers to make it look like wood grain!!!

Alot of the ceilings in the halls had these amazing double layers...

52 foot high ceilings?!?!

The light coming from these windows is artificial light, not sunlight.

Plaster caryatids...

Yet another amazing plaster ceiling...

And another...

Owl!

Bottom of the main staircase...