In the beginning

It began when several members of Fellowship Lodge #345, who meet regularly twice monthly in the 2nd floor lodge room and are Scottish Rite masons as well, noticed water damage to the paneling and to Past Master photographs along the north wall. The lodge members decided to investigate and went up the stairs to the choir room and roof access to see if they could determine the cause of the leakage.

Reaching the top of the stairs above the west end of the lodge room, it was noticed that the door that opens to the balcony section of the auditorium had water damage to the ceiling and walls around it causing the plaster to crumble and fall to the floor.

Proceeding thru the hallway to the roof access door directly above the lodge room, water damage was evident along the whole north wall as well as the windows.

When surveying the roof, bubbling in the rubber membrane was trapping water between the decking and bottom side of the rubber and was apparent the membrane had outlived its lifespan.

The process of Renovation

Forethought and planning are required in any restoration process but it is particularly crucial when restoring a building that is listed in the National Historical Registry. Home Pro of Joplin was the successful bidder contracted to replace the roof, fix our Double Headed Eagle and most immediately important, stop the water damage from getting worse. They determined, that to initially stop the rain water from leaking down the walls and seeping inside to inner walls causing damage, a cap on top of the parapet walls would be installed.

To further assist in getting the rain water off the roof, they installed new guttering and downspouts to ease the burden on the 4 existing spouts that were overloaded when down pours occurred.

The addition to the parapet caps along with the 2 mega drains draining to the east side of the building greatly reduced the water load on the north and south drains and eliminated the water leaking problem on the north and south side of the building.

The Double Headed Eagle

The Logo of the Scottish Rite is the Double Headed Eagle. Our Eagle suffered lightning damage and had to have one head totally replaced. The artisans at Home Pro recreated the left head by making a mold of the right head while on a crane hoisted to the top of the building. It was quite the achievement as they repaired minor damage to the rest of the eagle when installing the new head. Our beautiful Eagle is located on top of the west side of the building. Restoration of the Eagle was completed June 6th, 2022.

Library Windows

During Southwest Missouri’s rainy season, the library windows on the east side of the building began leaking onto the oak book shelves causing damage to some books and to the plaster wall behind the shelf. In order to prevent severe damage to our extensive book collection, it was imperative we fix the problem immediately.

New Windows

The old windows were blocked glass with approximately 84 blocks per window. The new ones are double paned and look so much better. Nearly every glass block had water in them. The window installation was completed 4/26/2022.