The Masonic Temple in

Kent, Ohio Kent is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the largest city in Portage County. It is located along the Cuyahoga River in Northeast Ohio on the western edge of the county. The population was 28,215 at the 2020 Census. The city is counted as pa ...

is a historic building which is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. Built between 1880 and 1882 in the

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

style, it was originally the home of Kent namesake Marvin Kent and his family. Construction was performed partially by locals and partly by master craftsmen from afar: the architect was Isaac Tuttle of neighboring

Ravenna Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the cap ...

, but interior woodworking was performed by woodworkers brought from New York City. Members of Kent's family lived at the house for slightly more than forty years before selling it to a Masonic lodge in 1923. Due to Marvin Kent's national prominence in the Republican Party, many political leaders visited his house, including Presidents

Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833March 13, 1901) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia–a grandson of the ninth pr ...

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in ...

William Howard Taft William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...

, and

Warren G. Harding Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...

; the guest room in which every president slept has been named the "President's Room" and preserved in its late nineteenth-century condition. Built of brick on a foundation of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

, the Masonic Temple features miscellaneous elements of wood and sandstone placed under a slate roof. A brick wall is placed in front of the house, which features a wrap-around porch with a small pediment. The house's walls rise two and a half stories, with a taller tower at the center of the facade; the eaves under the tall pointed roof are supported by a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

composed of

dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Reviv ...

ling.,

Ohio Historical Society Ohio History Connection, formerly The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society and Ohio Historical Society, is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1885. Headquartered at the Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio History Connect ...

, 2007. Accessed 2014-02-18. It was listed on the National Register in 1974 and is also a contributing structure of the West Main Street District, listed on the NRHP in 1977.

References

External links

Rockton Masonic Lodge #316
{{National Register of Historic Places in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Portage County, Ohio History of Kent, Ohio Clubhouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Masonic buildings in Ohio Buildings and structures in Portage County, Ohio

See also

References

External links