22 Jan Curbed LA: Look Inside Glendale’s 1920s Masonic Temple, Now Cool Creative Offices
By Bianca Barragan
Americana at Brand owner Rick Caruso and his company, Caruso Affiliated, announced last spring that they were buying a lovely 1920s-era Masonic temple right across the street from the Americana with the intent of turning the historic structure into creative offices with a row of shops next door (an adjacent Shake Shack is in the works). And now, the first 110 workers (from commercial real estate firm CBRE, hence the signage) moved into the gloriously renovated space this month, and today, the repurposed Art Deco building officially opened, according to release for the project.
The building was designed by Arthur Lindley, whose firm Lindley & Selkirk designed the Alex Theatre a few blocks north of the temple. Now, fully updated, it includes a “vaulted cathedral-trussed penthouse” containing meeting space outfitted with stadium seating. Like a good modern workplace should, this one includes exposed concrete and “structural steel elements,” plus 18 new 20-foot-tall windows. (Previous reports had noted the “haphazard window pattern” of the building as it existed pre-renovation, going so far to call part of the structure “typically windowless.” Not a super-ideal workspace.) The elaborate concierge services that will provide tenants’ employees with everything from personal grocery shopping to a person who will pick up dry cleaning are accessed through the Caruso-developed “Masonic Temple app.”
Source: Curbed LA