PHOTO ESSAY
Inside the Cocoanut Grove disaster, America's deadliest nightclub fire that killed 492 people in 15 minutes

The fire moved so fast it's still described as a mystery. Casey Grant, executive director emeritus of the Fire Protection Research Foundation, said the shape of the foyer ceiling sent the fire onward, "almost like out of a shotgun." As flames and smoke filled the club, panic ensued.
 

Source: Boston Globe

Then the club went dark. Joyce Mekelburg told the Boston Globe, "Everybody around me was screaming and crawling. Nobody knew where to go or how to go and everybody was crawling in a different direction."
 

Dead, dying and injured lie in street outside Cocoanut Grove while civilians and doctors administer aid. A girl walks in horror through the prone victims, seeking a loved one. This tragic scene was the aftermath of a fire which broke out in the Boston Night Club last night. Bettmann/ Corbis / Getty
Source: Boston Globe

People were losing consciousness due to the thick fumes. Bodies began to pile up, blocking the exits. One doctor told the Boston Globe, "They never had a chance. They never knew what happened."
 

Boston City firefighters and policemen and emergency service workers jam the street outside the Cocoanut Grove Night Club during sudden fire that swept the club before patrons had a chance to escape, Nov. 28, 1942. AP
Sources: Boston.com, Baltimore Sun

So many people died because management had locked doors to ensure people didn't leave without paying. Other doors only opened inwards, which made them unusable in the dark. The club's main entrance had a revolving door, which jammed due to the volume of people trying to get out.
 

This is what remains of the revolving door of the Cocoanut Grove night club where scores of patrons died trying to get out during a fire in the Back Bay section of Boston last night, seen Nov. 29, 1942 AP Sources: Harvard Crimson, National Archives

Outside, fireman arrived quickly. A rare stroke of good luck meant some firefighters were in the area after responding to a car fire. Those on hand grabbed axes to break windows.

Smoke pours from the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, right, during a fire in the Back Bay section of Boston, where 492 people died and hundreds more were injured. AP
Source: Boston Globe, National Fire Protection Association

But it was chaotic. The street was also filled with police, servicemen, and civilians. US Naval reserveman Nick Pagonis said in a police interview, which was publicly released in 2012, "It seemed to me that all those rescue workers were in the way. They held back those who wanted to help. The whole picture was very disgusting."

Police remove the burned body of a victim of a sudden fire that swept the Cocoanut Grove Night Club in Boston, Ma., the night of November 28, 1942. AP
Sources: Boston Globe, National Fire Protection Association, National Archives

Some did get out. But in the panic, people were separated from loved ones. A 21-year-old man named Clifford Johnson lost sight of his date as he was pushed into the open. He went back inside four times to try and save her, before he collapsed, covered in horrific burns.

This tragic scene outside of the fire-ravaged ruins which once were the swank Coconut Grove, shows dead or injured victims lying on the street waiting to be taken to hospitals or morgues. Bettmann / Getty Source: Herald Tribune

Some escaped through side doors, or climbed to the roof. According to the Baltimore Sun, two chorus girls jumped from the roof and were caught by two male dancers
 

Some of the Cocoanut Grove Night Club's luckier guests and employees escaped from the burning building through this side door. Others, who climbed to the roof, were brought to safety by this ladder, placed against the wall. Bettmann / Getty  Source: Baltimore Sun

Others survived by wetting handkerchiefs and covering their mouths. Daniel Weiss, one of the cashiers, covered his mouth with a soaked bar towel, and stayed close the ground. "The closer I was to the floor, the easier it was to breathe," he said.
 

Prokopos Spedalis, cook’s helper in the Cocoanut Grove night club in Boston, testifies at an inquest into the cause of the fire which took the lives of 450 guests, said, “I put a towel over my face like this,” as he told of leaving the kitchen to aid in smashing down a door to free a number of trapped guests, Dec. 1, 1942. Peter J. Carroll / AP Source: National Fire Protection Association

In little over an hour, the fire was out. Bodies were passed through the charred windows to waiting soldiers and sailors. It was so cold outside, below freezing, that puddles from the fire hoses froze over.
 

With stretchers and blankets for the burned victims, soldiers and sailors stand ready at the charred windows of the Cocoanut Grove Night Club. Bettmann / Getty
Sources: CBS News, National Fire Protection Association

An AP correspondent wrote, "When the last body was reported out I looked around the room of the ground floor. It was a shambles. Chairs and tables were upended, crockery and glassware was strewn everywhere, it was as if a tornado had whistled through the room."
 

A fireman surveys the ruins of the Cocoanut Grove Night Club, destroyed by fire last night (November 28). He stands beside a pole which was decorated to look like a coconut tree. Bettmann / Getty Source: Baltimore Sun

By midnight, the Cocoanut Grove was a charred, empty building. Despite what had happened within, the structure survived. The Sun called it a "huge brick oven," with little obvious damage to its walls and roof.
 

Firemen (rear) view the remains of Boston's Cocoanut Grove night club through the revolving doors leading to the tiny 10-foot-wide vestibule where stampeding guests were crushed and smothered as they tried to leave the burning club. Bettmann / Getty   Sources: Baltimore Sun, National Fire Protection Association

A priest administered last rites.
 

A priest is administering last rites to one of the victims of the tragic fire which claimed the lives of 399 persons. Bettmann / Getty

At least 400 persons were burned to death and more than 200 were injured when a fire swept through the Cocoanut Grove, the night of football celebration. Bettmann / Getty
 

Those still alive were sent to two nearby hospitals, Boston City and Massachusetts General. BCH got over 300 casualties, of which 132 lived longer than two hours. MGH got 114, of which 39 survived longer than two hours.  Later calculations worked out that BCH's victims came in at an astonishing rate of one victim every 11 seconds over a 75 minute period.

Because of the scope of the misfortune,

 neither hospitals charged any of the patients. 

READ ON

AUSTRALIAN INFERNO: Stunning images from space reveal the shocking extent of Australia's bushfire crisis

The Himawari-8 satellite's view of the Australian bushfires 
and smoke clouds on January 2. RAMMB/CIRA/CSU
Australian bushfires sparked in September have spread for months, leading to a state of emergency in many regions.
As of the new year, the blazes have scorched more than 14 million acres of land, killed about half a billion animals, and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
The blazes are so large and widespread that satellites in space can easily photograph them from orbit.
Specialized sensors on satellites that can see through the thick smoke are recording the bushfires' spread.

Australia's raging bushfires are so bad that satellites thousands of miles above Earth can easily spot their flames and smoke from space.

The fires likely started naturally, though experts think human-caused climate disruption has exacerbated hot arid conditions that fuel the growth of such blazes. Current estimates suggest eastern Australia's bushfire crisis has scorched more than 14 million acres of land, killed about half a billion animals, and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

The photo above — which shows plumes of smoke about half the area of Europe darkening skies as far as New Zealand in a yellow haze — was taken on Thursday by the Japan Meteorological Agency's Himawari-8 satellite.

Himawari-8 launched in October 2014 and weighs about as much as a Ford F-150 pickup truck. It now orbits over the same point about 22,300 miles above our planet. Using a variety of onboard sensors, Himawari-8, NASA's Suomi NPP satellite, and other Earth-monitoring machines are returning stunning imagery of Australia's dire situation.

Here are some of the most revealing photos, animations, and illustrations of the crisis on Earth as seen from outer space.

Himawari-8 overlooks the Western Hemisphere and photographs this face of Earth once every 10 minutes. Australia, its bushfires, and smoke plumes are easily visible.

An animation by the Himawari-8 satellite on January 2. 
NICT Science Cloud/CEReS/Kpchi University/Nagoya Science Museum
NASA's Suomi NPP satellite, which orbits about 500 
miles up, offers a much closer view of the planet — though
 a less consistent one. Here, Australia's bushfires are 
shown picking up in November.
 
An animation shows the Himawari-8 satellite's view of the
 eastern Australian bushfires from November 6 to 11. 
RAMMB/CIRA/CSU
Redder and longer wavelengths of light, such as near
 infrared, can show fiery hotspots on the ground through
 the haze and smoke.

Himawari-8's view of eastern Australian bushfires on November 7. RAMMB/CIRA/CSU
Embers from fires that began in September have spread easily in abnormally long, dry, and expansive drought.

Himawari-8's view of the Australian bushfires and smoke 
clouds on January 2. Melbourne is visible in the bottom-left 
corner. RAMMB/CIRA/CSU
This animation, from January 1 and 2, highlights multiple
 hotspots in normally invisible infrared light. Two especially 
large patches of bushfires (shown just southwest of the
 center) stretch dozens of miles long.

Himawari-8's view of the eastern Australian bushfires
 from January 1 to 2. RAMMB/CIRA/CSU
Daytime satellite views of the ground are equally, if not
 more, dramatic. The European Space Agency's 
Sentinel-2 satellite took this image of growing bushfires 
while passing over Bateman Bay on New Year's Eve.

A view of a bushfire in Bateman Bay, Australia, on
 December 31.
Copernicus EMS; Sentinel 2/ESA
Source: Twitter
The scope of the fires is hard to comprehend. In New 
South Wales alone, blazes have created a fire front in the
 state that — if put into a straight line — would stretch 
from Sydney, across the Indian Ocean, and into Afghanistan.

A satellite's view of the eastern Australian bushfires on
 January 2. NASA Worldview
Source: Twitter
The smoke plume alone is about 1.3 billion acres, or half
 the size of Europe, and is drifting more than 1,000 miles
 over New Zealand, where it is choking and yellowing the
 skies.

Himawari-8's view of the fires on January 2.
RAMMB/CIRA/CSU
Source: Twitter
So far, the bushfires have chewed through more than
 twice the area that burned in Amazon's rainforests
 during 2019.
 
An animation shows Himawari-8's view of the Australian 
bushfires and smoke clouds on January 2. RAMMB/CIRA/CSU
Source: Queimadas

At least 17 people have gone missing in the fires, eight have died, and hundreds of thousands have evacuated. Volunteer firefighters are working around the clock to curtail the disaster, though it may burn until cooler fall temperatures arrive in the Southern Hemisphere several months from now.

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Australia bushfires: Residents refuse to shake prime minister Scott Morrison's hand as mass evacuation begins


January 2, 2020


A long queue forms at a Woolworths supermarket in Ulladulla, New South Wales - Mick Meredith /via REUTERS

The Australian prime minister was heckled out of a fire-ravaged town in New South Wales on Thursday, as a mass evacuation of the region got under way ahead of worsening conditions.

Video of the visit to Cobargo, on the south coast, showed Scott Morrison insist a woman shake his hand as she criticised him over the government's response to the crisis.

“I am only shaking your hand if you give more funding to the RFS (Rural Fire Service),” she said as he turned away. “So many people have lost their homes. We need more help.”

The prime minister was soon ushered to his car by minders when other residents began shouting at him. “You won't be getting any votes down here buddy,” one called out.

A firefighter also refused to shake Mr Morrison's hand. Video footage showed Mr Morrison trying to grab the man's hand, who then got up and walked away, sparking an apology from the prime minister. A local fire official explained that the man had lost his house while defending others' homes.

Even a state politician from his own Liberal party whose seat is in the region took a swipe at the prime minister.

"To be honest, the locals probably gave him the welcome he probably deserved," said New South Wales transport minister Andrew Constance.

Mr Morrison said on Friday he didn't take the attacks personally.

"I understand the hurt, the anger and the frustration," he said in an interview on 3AW radio.

"Whether they're angry with me or they're angry about their situation, all I know is that they're hurting and it's my job to be there to try and offer some comfort and support," he said.

Anger over the government's handling of the crisis has grown since the outbreak of wildfires, which have so far killed at least 17 people, including nine since Christmas Day, and destroyed 1,400 homes.

In Victoria, 28 people are currently unaccounted for.

In Cobargo, a 29-year-old dairy farmer and his father, 53, were killed earlier this week as fires swept through the village.

Mr Morrison has overseen more than $12.9m cuts to the state's fire service in the latest budget, and has been criticised for rejecting calls to professionalise the service.

New South Wales has declared a state of emergency, starting from Friday, and told tourists to leave a 155-mile stretch of the state's southern coast as temperatures were expected to reach 40 degrees celsius on Saturday.

The army began evacuations in what the state's transport minister said was the "largest mass relocation of people out of the region that we've ever seen". But tens of thousands were still stranded by Thursday night as roads became gridlocked, with shops and fuel stations running out of supplies.

A long queue forms at a Woolworths supermarket in Ulladulla, New South Wales

The navy was called in to assist in getting people out of the town of Mallacoota, in the neighbouring state of Victoria, where 4,000 people were trapped on the beach for days after the fire devastated much of their town.

Rob Rogers, NSW's Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner, said firefighters were struggling to combat the fires.

"The message is we've got so much fire in that area, we have no capacity to contain these fires," he told ABC.

"We just need to make sure that people are not in front of them."

In addition to the loss of human life, homes and farmland, ecologists from the University of Sydney estimate almost half a billion mammals, birds and reptiles have been lost this fire season, with the toll expected to rise.

At least 17 people were reported to be missing on Thursday across Victoria. The body of Mick Roberts, who had been unaccounted for since Monday, was found dead in his home in Buchan, East Gippsland, on Wednesday, his niece said.

“He’s not missing any more ... sorry but his body has been found in his house… Very sad day for us to (start) the year but we’re a bloody tight family and we will never forget our mate and my beautiful Uncle Mick,” she wrote on Facebook .

Brie Kingsely, a Melbourne resident, witnessed the sheer scale of the crisis while driving from Sydney to get home. She told The Telegraph the entire six-hour journey was “smoke-ridden”.

“I drove from Sydney to Melbourne. At the worst of it I was 10km from an active, 100 thousand-hectare out of control fire next to the Hume Highway,” she said. “It wasn’t closed, but basically smoke-ridden for six hours.”

A tender from HMAS Choules motors through smoke haze off the coast of Mallacoota Credit: AP

Mr Morrison said the crisis was likely to last for months. "It (fires) will continue to go on until we can get some decent rain that can deal with some of the fires that have been burning for many, many months," he told reporters on Thursday.

Australia’s capital, Canberra, recorded the worst air quality of any city in the world on Thursday, an astonishing outcome for a city of just 400,000 people.

An elderly woman who arrived in the city by plane died shortly after, and family believe it was related to smoke inhalation, though that is yet to be confirmed.

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You're not welcome, you f-----': Videos show Australia's prime minister heckled and hounded out of a bushfire-ravaged town by furious locals

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Australia's fires have burned more than twice as much land as the summer's Amazon blazes. They're part of an ominous carbon-dioxide feedback loop.

Aylin Woodward
5 hours ago


 

Firefighters struggle against the strong wind in an effort

 to secure nearby houses from bushfires near the town

 of Nowra in the Australian state of New South Wales, 

December 31, 2019. Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty


Since September, bushfires have razed 14.6 million acres in Australia — more than twice the area that burned in the Amazon rainforest in 2019.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate, and nearly half a billion animals have perished.

Drought conditions and record-breaking temperatures contributed to the fires' unprecedented scale and intensity.

The carbon dioxide the blazes send into the atmosphere raises the risk of more large fires in the future.

Australia has become an inferno.

Since the start of the country's bushfire season in September, 14.6 million acres have burned and at least 18 people have died. Half a billion animals have perished, and the country's eastern states and biggest cities have been hammered by smoke and walls of flame. An estimated 1,400 homes have been destroyed in New South Wales, with hundreds of thousands of people forced to evacuate.

Australia experiences fires every fall, but this year's crisis — which comes on the heels of a record-breaking heatwave and prolonged drought — is unprecedented. The fires that plagued the Brazilian Amazon over the summer, by comparison, burned through 7 million acres of rainforest, about half of the impacted area in Australia.

A satellite photo of Bateman Bay on the southern coast of New South Wales, Australia, on December 31, 2019. Copernicus EMS

Whereas most of the Amazon fires were deliberately set by ranchers and loggers looking to clear land, Australia's bushfires mostly started due to natural causes.

But they may be part of an ominous feedback loop. The more land burns, the more carbon dioxide (CO2) gets released into the atmosphere, and the more trees — which act as natural carbon sinks — disappear. Already, Australia's fires have released 350 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. That's roughly 1% of the total global carbon emissions from 2019. The more CO2 gets released, the warmer our planet gets; that raises the risk of more big and deadly fires.

An area twice the size of Belgium is burning

A fire fighter watches a bushfire as it burns near homes on the outskirts of the town of Bilpin on December 19, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. David Gray/Getty Images

It's hard to comprehend the size of the affected area in Australia. In total, the area of burned land (14.6 million acres) is twice the size of Belgium. Nearly six times more acres have burned in Australia than in California's devastating 2018 wildfire season, when the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise.

Melbourne and Sydney have been engulfed in smoke.

"I looked out into smoke-filled valleys, with only the faintest ghosts of distant ridges and peaks in the background," Michael Mann, a US climate scientist who is on sabbatical in Sydney, wrote in the Guardian on Wednesday.

A man looks at the smoky skyline on December 19, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. Jenny Evans/Getty Images

In December, a state official said New South Wales was experiencing the "longest" and "most widespread" period of poor air quality in the state's history.


According to AirVisual, a service that provides a live ranking of air quality in the world's cities, Sydney had the 12th-worst air quality on the planet on December 11.
A dangerous feedback loop

A firefighter battles flames outside Sydney, Australia, December 10, 2019. SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images

Dry conditions in Australia's bushland, wooded areas, and Blue Mountain National Park have made the land ripe for sparks. Australia experienced its driest spring ever in 2019. December 18 was the hottest day in the country's history, with average temperatures hitting 105.6 degrees Fahrenheit (40.9 degrees Celsius).

In the last 15 years, Australia saw eight of its 10 warmest years on record. Winter rains, which can help reduce the intensity of summer fires, have declined significantly, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. That meant that when the fire season started, it was savage and unstoppable.

"We used to see hundreds of thousands of hectares burned in bushfires, but now we are seeing millions on fire," Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project, told the Herald.

A firefighter sprays water after a fire impacted Clovemont Way in Melbourne, Australia on December 30, 2019. AAP Image/Julian Smith via REUTERS

The more forests burn, the more carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere, and the more heat it traps on the planet. To make matters worse, when natural carbon sinks like the Amazon rainforest and woodlands in Australia burn down, that reduces the natural avenues by which CO2 can get absorbed.

It's a vicious cycle.

In 2019, wildfires across the globe released approximately 6.38 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to the European Union's satellite observation program, Copernicus. That's about 17% of the global total for the year.

Until now, Australia's annual bushfires were pretty much net-zero in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions — the CO2 they emitted was balanced out by how much carbon-dioxide the country's forests sequestered. But in the last three months, Australia's fires have emitted roughly 350 million metric tons of CO2, according to the Herald. (By comparison, the Amazon fires produced less than half that: 140 million metric tons.)

Between 2013 and 2017, Australia's fires emitted 340 million metric tons of CO2 on average per year. This year's total has already blown past that, and Australia's dry season has another two months to go.

"Normally bushfires are thought of as 'carbon neutral,' but, in very simple terms, we're seeing climate extremes carry a double punch, with more frequent fire and drought," David Bowman, a fire science expert at the University of Tasmania, told the Herald.

A firefighter hoses down trees and flying embers in an effort to secure nearby houses from bushfires near the town of Nowra in the Australian state of New South Wales, December 31, 2019. Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty

Canadell said he thinks the country's forests will need 100 years to return to the point where they can act as carbon sinks for fires of this size and scale.
Climate change is linked to more intense fires

Last year was a year of fire. Blazes cut through the Siberian tundra over the summer. California was hit by three dozen fires that each burned more than 1,000 acres. More than 100,000 fires started over the course of 10 August days in the Amazon rainforest.

Climate change increases the likelihood, size, and frequency of wildfires, since warmer air sucks away moisture from trees and soil, leading to dryer land. Rising temperatures also make heat waves and droughts more frequent and severe, which exacerbates wildfire risk, since hot, parched forests are prone to burning.

The sky is filled with smoke, and ash on December 21, 2019 in Shoalhaven Heads, NSW, Australia. A catastrophic fire danger warning has been issued for the greater Sydney region, the Illawarra and southern ranges as hot, windy conditions continue to hamper firefighting efforts across NSW. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian declared a state of emergency on Thursday, the second state of emergency declared in NSW since the start of the bushfire season. Cassie Spencer/Getty Images

"Climate change is exacerbating every risk factor for more frequent and intense bushfires," Dale Dominey-Howes, an expert on disaster risk at the University of Sydney, told Business Insider Australia. "Widespread drought conditions, higher than average temperatures — these are all made worse by climate change."


Earth has already warmed about 1 degree Celsius. July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded, and 2019 will likely be the third-hottest year on record globally, according to Climate Central. Only 2016, 2015, and 2017 were hotter (in that order).
 

A helicopter drops water on a bushfire in scrub behind houses in Bundoora, Melbourne, Australia, December 30, 2019. AAP Image/Ellen Smith via REUTERS

"The brown skies I observed in the Blue Mountains this week are a product of human-caused climate change," Mann wrote in The Guardian.

He added: "Take record heat, combine it with unprecedented drought in already dry regions, and you get unprecedented bushfires like the ones engulfing the Blue Mountains and spreading across the continent. It's not complicated."

SEE ALSO: Photos from space reveal what climate change looks like, from melting Arctic ice to rampant California fires

Read Next: Stunning images from space reveal the shocking extent of Australia's bushfire crisis

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A family bought a 20,000-square-foot Freemason temple in Indiana for $89,000, and they're now turning it into their home. Take a look inside.


The Masonic temple. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

Theresa and Atom Cannizzaro bought a former Masonic temple and are converting it into a home.
The second floor, their living space, has a large open-floor concept with five bedrooms, a kitchen, and a dining room.
When the Freemasons operated in the building, the basement was used for events, but the Cannizzaros are making it into an event space for the community.
The great room on the third floor, the largest room in the house, is now used as a movie theater.
Theresa said she thinks the house is haunted because she has heard what sounds like a janitor's keys jangling in the basement.
Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Older homes almost always come with a unique and charming history, but one family in Indiana moved into a house that has a particularly strange past.


Two years ago, Theresa and Atom Cannizzaro bought a former Masonic temple in the Midwest that acted as a meeting place for one of the world's most secretive organizations for almost 100 years. Now the couple and their three children — a 12-year-old boy, a 10-year-old boy, and a 6-year-old girl — are renovating the building and turning it into their home.

From large open spaces to a haunted library, here's what it's like inside the Masonic temple that the Cannizzaro family now calls home.



In 2016, Theresa and Atom Cannizzaro were living in San Diego with their three children when they decided they wanted to move to the Midwest.


Atom and Theresa. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

Theresa and Atom had lived in San Diego their entire lives and planned on raising their children there, but they soon realized that they wanted something different: a big farm in the Midwest.

"We wanted to try a new place to raise our kids — somewhere where my husband wouldn't have to work 80 hours a week," Theresa said. " We wanted to spend more time with our kids."

After a family reunion in Indiana, Theresa and Atom drove around the state looking at farms for sale when they came across something that surprised them.


While driving around Indiana, they stumbled across a Masonic temple that was for sale.

The temple. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

"We turned the corner, and there was the building, right in front of us, with a for-sale sign out front," Theresa said.

As someone who loves history and architecture, Theresa was fascinated, so they called the realtor just to see how much something like that would cost. Instead, the realtor offered to give the couple a tour of the 20,000-square-foot building.

"We spent two hours inside the building and absolutely fell in love with it," she said, adding that "slowly but surely" they realized that "there's so much we could do with this space."


They ended up buying the temple for $89,000 and moved in six months later, in 2017.

The temple. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

"We went back to California, but it was still on our minds," Theresa said. "We started talking through it more and did a lot of research and crunching numbers. Every single thing we talked about and every single 'what if' worked out, so we put in an offer on the building."

They bought it in full for $89,000, so they do not have a mortgage and are debt-free after using the money they got from selling their San Diego home. The equity they earned from that sale funded most of the up-front remodel costs at the temple.

Theresa is a full-time respiratory specialist, while Atom stays at home to watch the children and work on remodeling the building. So far, they have spent an additional $40,000 on renovations. Since they refuse to take out loans, the remodeling process has been "slow going," Theresa said.


The first step in the renovation was going through the items left behind in the temple when the Freemasons moved locations.

An old photo of the temple. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

Freemasonry dates back to medieval times and is considered the oldest male fraternity and social organization. Famous members included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, and Gerald Ford.

Through the years, Freemasons earned a reputation as being part of a secret organization, leading to conspiracy theories that the group is behind many of the world's biggest historical events.

The Masonic lodge in Indiana that Theresa and Atom bought was built in 1926 and remained the local headquarters for several years. When the Freemasons decided to move, they cleaned out most of the building but left behind a few relics.

"I knew nothing really about Freemasonry other than that it was a secret organization," Theresa said.


Upon entering the building, you walk into a foyer with a large Masonic symbol on the floor.

The crest in the foyer. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

The front door opens into a foyer with a large crest imprinted on the floor. The crest is a common Masonic symbol, and Theresa said she planned to keep it there.

"It's really cool," Theresa said. "You walk in and it's right there on the floor."

The symbol can be seen throughout the house.

From the main entrance, you can go downstairs into the basement, where the Freemasons held large events.

The basement before the remodel. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

"You can easily fit several hundred people down there," Theresa said. She added that there is a large stage in the back of the basement, where the organization would put on shows or speeches.


Theresa said her children often ride their bikes down in the basement when it's too cold to go outside.


The basement during the remodel. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

They plan to turn the basement into a community space that people can rent for events and weddings.

"We would like to eventually have a business out of the building that can benefit us financially, but we are uncertain about when that will happen," Theresa said.

Behind the stage in the basement is a large commercial kitchen with six ovens, a 10-burner stove, and a deep fryer.


The commercial kitchen after it was restored. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

Theresa said they used this kitchen when they first moved into the building before they renovated the second floor. It will become useful again when they turn the basement into a community space for events, she said.


The second floor of the building was renovated to become the Cannizzaro family's main living space.


The doors that lead into the living space. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

This is the space the Cannizzaros have renovated the most, and it's where they spend most of their time. There are five bedrooms on this floor.


In the second-floor foyer, before you enter the living space, you can see a mural on the ceiling.


The mural on the ceiling. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

Theresa and her husband have tried to preserve the mural on the crossbeams of the ceiling.

"Unfortunately, a lot of the paint on the crossbeams is starting to peel and come off, so we have to figure out how to save it," she said.


Inside the living space is a large open area that the family uses as a living room.


The living space. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

Theresa described this space as an "open concept" and said they planned to fully remodel this room sometime in the future.


In one corner of the large open space, they built a kitchen.


The newly built kitchen. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

"We built the kitchen from scratch," Theresa said. "We custom-built everything."

The kitchen has pull-out cabinets that move around on rollers, as well as a large island that has a concrete countertop with semiprecious stones inside.

"It's one of my favorite spaces that we've done so far," she added.


On this floor they installed a full bathroom with a bathtub.


The bathroom. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

Before the Cannizzaros moved in, the six bathrooms in the building had no place to shower or bathe.

"Our first priority when we moved into the building was to put in the shower," Theresa said. "It was our very first project."

Meanwhile, the Freemasons' offices have been turned into the family's bedrooms.


The children's bedroom. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

"These rooms are big," Theresa said. "They are very, very, very large."


On the second floor, there's also a billiards room.


The billiards room. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

Inside are two pool tables that were built in the 1800s, Theresa said.

"They're absolutely gorgeous, and they were left with the building," she said.

The last room on this floor is the library — Theresa's favorite room in the entire house.


The library. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

"The entire wall is beautiful bookcases with glass fronts," she said. The glass has the Masonic symbol etched into the surface, and the cases are filled with books that date back to the 1800s.


The third floor has a large empty room that the family calls the Egyptian room.

 

The Egyptian room. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

There is another small mural that wraps around the entire space. If you look closely, there are symbols that Theresa said remind her of Egypt, hence the name of the room.

She said this is the room where the Freemasons would store their clothing and garb that they would wear during their meetings.

The Cannizzaros, however, plan to turn this room into an Airbnb.

Also on this floor are five cedar-lined dressing rooms.

 

The hallway of dressing rooms. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

Theresa said these small closets were where the Freemasons would change into their clothing for meetings and events.


Double doors at the end of the hall lead to the Great Room, where the Freemasons held most of their meetings.

 

The Great Room. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

The room has 24-foot ceilings, a wrap-around mezzanine, stadium seating, an organ, and a stage.

"It is quite the magnificent space," Theresa said.


For now, the Cannizzaros use this space as a home movie theater.

The Great Room is now a movie theater. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

After painting one wall white, they set up a projector and now have movie nights in the Great Room. Other times, the children use the room to play hide and seek, and sometimes they invite the 15 to 20 other kids in the neighborhood over to have a Nerf-gun fight.

The family isn't sure what to do with the room in the future. Theresa said they would most likely turn it into another rental space.


Outside the Great Room is a secret staircase that leads to the fourth floor.

The secret staircase. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

On the fourth floor you can find storage and a room that stores the organ's pipes.


Along with the secret staircase, there are other parts of the house that some may find creepy. Theresa said she thinks the building is haunted.

The main staircase. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

"There are things that have happened that we just cannot explain," she said. "We've had stuff fly off shelves."

Theresa said the library seemed to be the place with the most paranormal activity. She said she often walks into the room and notices the cabinets are wide open even though they are very heavy. Sometimes she can hear what sounds like a janitor's keys jingling in the basement.

"I'm never scared in the building, and my kids are never scared," Theresa said. "I don't think it's anything really bad that's here."


Despite the paranormal activity, Theresa said her family is focused on turning the building into a home and preserving its Masonic history.

The temple. Courtesy of Theresa Cannizzaro

"Taking on a building this size, it's not a quick-snap decision, because it very well could be a lifelong project for us," Theresa said. "I just hope that we continue on our path and with the goals that we set to turn this building into what it was originally built to be."