Liberal Arts Lodge #677

Nov. 30: Liberal Arts Lecture Series presents: Nicholas Wisniewski, Ph.D.
Dec. 03: UCLA International Conference on Freemasonry, Registration
Dec. 10: Christmas Party
Dec. 16: Los Angeles Scottish Rite Installation
Jan. 14: Liberal Arts Installation

Liberal Arts Lodge is located in Los Angeles at Westwood and Olympic:

2244 Westwood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064

The foundation of Liberal Arts Lodge is very closely tied to the University of California Los Angeles and the surrounding community.  In 1930, a group of men closely associated with UCLA and the Westwood community gathered and established Liberal Arts Lodge.  The Lodge initially met at a small ice cream parlor near an entrance to the UCLA campus but continued to grow over the next 30 years, creating the need to move to several larger locations. In 1960, the members built their own Lodge building at the current location on Westwood Boulevard.

In the years since, Liberal Arts Lodge has continued to mature -- growing, prospering and serving its members well.  The Lodge has developed diversity in all aspects –- age, occupation, religion, ethnicity and education.  The result has been a cultural blending that has created an appreciation for, and understanding of our differences and similarities.  It would be impossible to list the names of all those who have contributed faithfully to the life and welfare of the Lodge and community, or to enumerate the distinctions achieved by so many of our brethren in service to the Grand Lodge of California and their community.  The combined work of every member over the years has made Liberal Arts Lodge what it is today,  having the reputation of being one of the friendliest Lodges in California. And the bond of brotherly love is stronger than ever.

Freemasonry is a fraternal organization whose membership is held together by shared moral and metaphysical ideals and—in most of its branches—by a constitutional declaration of belief in a Supreme Being. The order is thought to have arisen from the English and Scottish fraternities of practicing stonemasons and cathedral builders in the early Middle Ages; traces of the society have been found as early as the 14th century. Because, however, some documents of the order trace the sciences of masonry and geometry from Egypt, Babylon, and Palestine to England and France, some historians of Masonry claim that the order has its roots in antiquity.

The formation of the English Grand Lodge in London (1717) was the beginning of the widespread dissemination of speculative Freemasonry, the present-day fraternal order, whose membership is not limited to working stonemasons. The six lodges in England in 1700 grew to about 30 by 1723. There was a parallel development in Scotland and Ireland, although some lodges remained unaffiliated and open only to practicing masons. By the end of the 18th century, there were Masonic lodges in all European countries and in many other parts of the world as well.

The first lodge in the United States was founded in Philadelphia (1730); Benjamin Franklin was a member. Many of the leaders of the American Revolution, including John Hancock and Paul Revere, were members of St. Andrew's Lodge in Boston. George Washington became a Mason in 1752. At the time of the Revolution most of the American lodges broke away from their English and Scottish antecedents. Freemasonry has continued to be important in politics; 13 Presidents have been Masons, and at any given time quite a large number of the members of Congress have belonged to Masonic lodges. Notable European Masons included Voltaire, Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Franz Joseph Haydn, Johann von Goethe, Johann von Schiller, and many leaders of Russia's Decembrist revolt (1825).