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The International Temple, formerly the Perry Belmont House, is the world headquarters of the General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, one of several organizations affiliated with Freemasonry. The building is located at 1618 New Hampshire Avenue, Northwest in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The International Temple was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 8, 1973. ==History== The building, Beaux-Arts in style, was built from 1906 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.〔As the house was completed, Perry Belmont transferred to his brother August the Newport cottage "By-the-Sea", which he had occupied in the season for the previous eighteen years. (''New York Times'', "Belmont Home Transferred", October 16, 1909 (on-line text )).〕 Perry Belmont served as a United States Congressman from New York, and later as the United States' ambassador to Spain. French architect Ernest Sanson designed the building, having built several chateaux in Europe; his associate architect on the site was Horace Trumbauer.〔Gerard Martin Moeller, G. Martin Moeller, Jr., and Francis D. Lethbridge, ''AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C.'', 2006: cat. no. L30, p. 264f; Michael C. Kathrens, Eleanor Weller and Richard C. Marchand, ''American Splendor: The Residential Architecture of Horace Trumbauer'' p. 141.〕 The house takes the form of a free-standing pavilion in the French taste, 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. Normally 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.〔(GGC International Headquarters )〕〔Williams, Paul. ''Dupont Circle'' (Arcadia Publishing, 2000) pg.52,86〕〔(GGC Headquarters MWGP Suite )〕 The Belmonts continued to use the building until 1925. In 1925 the Belmonts decided to place the house for sale. Himself a Freemason, Perry Belmont sold the building to General Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star for $100,000, on the condition that the Right Worthy Grand Secretary would live in the building.〔 On May 8, 1973, the Belmont House was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The building was designated a contributing property to the Dupont Circle Historic District in 1978.〔 The 2009 property value of the Belmont House is $7,475,100.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher = Government of the District of Columbia )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「International Temple」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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