House of the Temple and Scottish Rite lore

The House of the Temple is the headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, and was designed by architect John Russell Pope; construction took place from 1911 to 1915. The building was explicitly modeled on the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and houses extensive Masonic archives and symbolic architecture. Local lore includes rumors about secretive rituals and a subterranean vault, which are part of popular narratives about Freemasonry; such claims are anecdotal and debated, while the building's architectural and organizational history is documented.