DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Arlington Heights Lodge No. 1184. Now, some buildings just sit there. Four walls, a roof, maybe a coat of paint if you're lucky.
And then there are buildings that mean something — buildings that a community reached into its own pockets to make happen, from the ground up, before the mortar was even dry on the decade. Arlington Heights Lodge No. 1184 of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons is one of the latter kind. The Lodge was chartered on December 9, 1921.
Right there at the start, you've got an organization that knew what it wanted — and knew it needed a place worthy of the work. The land itself came from two of their own: Lodge members W.C. Stonestreet and F.H.
Sparrow donated it. That's the kind of commitment that gets a building built. And then there's the man who designed it.
John C. Davies — also a Lodge member, born in 1885 — sat down and drew something that wasn't going to be mistaken for a hardware store or a county annex. Davies gave them Classical Revival architecture with strong Greek temple influence.
We're talkin' pedimented gables rising up like something transplanted from antiquity. Brick pilasters crowned with stone capitals. Round-arch windows on the upper level, a round-arch entry welcoming you in.
Stone motif details worked into the facade. And art glass transoms catching the light just so. This is a man who understood that the Lodge deserved permanence.
Davies, who lived until 1963, left something in Tarrant County that outlasted him by a good long while — and is still standing to prove it. The building was dedicated January 3, 1923. A little over a year after the charter was signed, the doors were open.
Land donated, design drafted by a brother, construction done — all of it moving with a kind of quiet, purposeful momentum. That's the thing about Arlington Heights Lodge No. 1184. Every element of its origin traces back to the membership itself.
The land, the design, the dedication. It didn't arrive from somewhere else. It grew right there in Tarrant County, out of the people who believed in building something that would last.
And if that Greek-temple silhouette on the horizon doesn't tell you they succeeded — well, the building's still there. Go have a look.
What the marker says
Chartered on December 9, 1921, Arlington Heights Lodge No. 1184 is located on land donated by Lodge members W.C. Stonestreet and F.H. Sparrow. This building, designed by Lodge member John C. Davies (1885-1963), was dedicated January 3, 1923. The Classical Revival structure with strong Greek temple influence features pedimented gables, brick pilasters with stone capitals, round-arch upper windows and entry, stone motif details, and art glass transoms. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1987.