I ran straight around the corner,
hiding. My heart was pounding I couldn’t actually focus on anything other than
to get back behind this door and stay quiet. After silence for about a minute I
peeked through the crack in the door to see if someone was standing there. I
saw my break as I slipped around the door and silently crept up the stairs
where they were going to film next. They were still on break so no one would be
around.
The green carpet smelled musty as
if it hadn’t been replaced or deep cleaned in decades. The room was set up like
an office for our set, it was the front office to the lodge but we transformed
it to make it look like an inner city hospital clinic. I didn’t want to mess
anything up as I tiptoed around the giant cords and jungle of lights that would
flood the room just the right amount for filming. John, our first Assistant
Camera guy, was the only one in the room, making sure that things were set up
for the crew to return from lunch. I startled him when I rounded the corner and
almost ran into him.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
he asked gravely as I almost knocked over one of the director’s chairs. I could
never read him because I hardly ever saw him laugh, so I think it was always
safe to assume he didn’t enjoy being messed with. I apologized and quietly but
quickly swept up the stairs before he could question me more. The long hallway
that led to the other side of the temple as just below me, I knew it. One could
get fantastically lost here and not find their way for an hour or two.
The Masonic Temple in Guthrie is
one of the largest Masonic Temples in the country; it was a beautiful old lodge
back in its prime, and still will hold the occasional mason passing through.
The place was built in 1919 with the thought that it would be a reflection of
God and the beauty of His creation. The Masons are a group of people that hold
secret orders – of which they hold to the strictest rules and oaths. They are a
movement basically and have been a secret society for centuries.
This specific temple is a wonder
because it is in the middle of Guthrie, Oklahoma, the middle of nowhere. When
people think of a vacation or a destination they would like to visit, it is
pretty much promised that you will not hear the name Guthrie, come from
anyone’s lips unless there are family ties. Even then there are about eleven
thousand people that live there, so the odds of someone across the country having
family there are very slim. This makes it the perfect place for a small
unassuming film to make its setting.
Driving up
to the town is quite unnerving to a person from the city. The biggest store in
town is the Wal-Mart and generations move slowly throughout time here,
rebuilding houses, fixing up old property and living humbly as time goes by.
Everything seems to stand still as we drove up the road downtown Guthrie,
everyone has lived the same way for years and there is no rush to change that
fact whatsoever.
As I kept
searching for the correct stairs to get to the hallway leading to the front
section of the building I stumbled across an old “Robe Room” which I can only
imagine was for changing of costumes during a production. From what I
understand there are three stages in the temple and sometimes are still used
for productions. There’s no central cooling system within because of the age of
the building, which made the room a lot stuffier than it should have been. I
could feel the dust crawling down my throat as I struggled to breath normally –
there’s no telling what I would inhale in this place. Finding a staircase down
to another level I heard someone rustling across the floor behind me. Without
looking back I flew down the stairs two at a time, just missing a dangerous
ledge sticking out from the wall and dodging a piece of furniture that looked
out of place and lonely.
Voices
carried down the hallway and I turned the other direction to keep hiding from
my pursuer. I backed into some curtains that had huge draw strings with tassels
attached to them, finding a break in the cloth I pushed them apart and stepped
through. As I stepped into the massive room I had to stop and take in the
vastness of the architecture. I didn’t realize a room could be this bit within
the building. I had found one of the old magnificent theaters. It was two
tiered with dark wooden seats that rose up almost as high as the ceiling, when
you stepped the sound did not echo but seemed to soak into every particle of
the room, a moist environment for acoustics. A beautiful antique organ that sat
imbedded in the floor and content with its position. The great red curtains
that seemed to flow down from the ceiling gave grandeur to the place that
seemed otherwise haunted.
“Kelli?” I
jumped as a person’s head appeared between the curtains that I had just come
from. “What are you doing?” Ryan asked, looking at me quizzically.
“Just
looking.” I gathered up my notebook that I had been carrying around with me and
quickly followed him through the curtains.
“Want to
see something really cool?” He asked as I steppe through the cascading
curtains.
“Is that
even a question?” I replied coolly as he led the way back up the stairs I had
just come from. How people are able to find their way around this place I will
never understand, but he did not skip a beat as he quickly shifted his way
through the halls in what seemed like “the right direction”. We came to a huge
open space on the second floor where there was a massive hall seemingly fitting
for a presidential address it was so large. We followed the railing, the floor
groaning below us with each step, protesting our presence as if it was angry we
had come.
“Look here”
he ducked into a side room that was really like an entry parlor area for two adjacent
rooms. One being the old library that looked like it came straight from a Harry
Potter movie, and the other being the scriptorium or where people would write
letters and essays. These were the most beautiful rooms I could have imagined. They
were blocked off but just being able to glance into a time different than our
own was worth every moment of it.
Ryan smiled
down at me as I stood open-mouthed, staring at the gothic beauty and rustic
aura.
“Pretty
great, huh?” he folded his arms and leaned against the wall to take in my
surprise and awe.
“Is there
more?”
“I thought
you would never ask.” And he bolted off to the next location. Within 20 minutes
I had visited myriads of different rooms, each with their own story to tell.
There was the Assyrian room dressed in the ancient Assyrian décor, as well as
the Egyptian and Babylonian rooms – all were dressed in their theme.
“My
personal favorite…” Ryan opened up a beautiful massive door to the Crystal
Room; a vintage dressed imitating fashionable English 18th century.
The great chandeliers cascaded down to fan out and make the room shimmer. The
furniture accented with its different dramatic deep colors to enhance the
flavor of the aura. It was here that I realized how vastly different and closed
off from the world must this place be, to be kept in timeless condition, never
changing, always the next venue for someone’s wedding or a reception of some
sort. How lonely it must be to keep these halls and walk where thousands of
people have filtered out but never stayed. It feels like it should be a home,
it seems to desire familiarity of faces, and its character growing alone made
it feel sick. Its beautiful trimmings fading to age, wishing to be owned and
cared for as it is supposed to be cared for. We closed the door and headed back
to production. After we leave this place will be empty, a silent tomb filled
with rooms that will never be quite filled again.
This was
such a beautiful location to visit and is quite easy to get to if you are going
through Oklahoma at some point. Though it is a bit off the beaten path it is
worth a look to see what is inside the temple. The place is magnificently designed
to catch the eye and trick the soul into thinking that it belongs. It’s an
experience worth looking into.
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