Freemasonry traveled west carrying threads of metropolitan design to rural areas. Though designed by a member of the lodge, the simple geometric frame of arches carried on columns in antis suggests roots in Maximilian Godefroy's work in Baltimore. The building was Victorianized after the Civil War probably at the time of the rear addition and was stuccoed over the original brick in 1902. That has since been removed and replaced with dreadful modern Colonial Revival brickwork that largely destroys the integrity of the design. The cubic mass across the street, which is crowned by a tower, houses city offices. Built in the 1830s and enlarged in the 1870s, it was significantly colonialized and further enlarged in the twentieth century.