[Jason]

Their altar and other ceremonial regalia are kept in a rented shed behind a Port St. Lucie church.
One night this week, lodge steward David Cartis and other members of the Cornerstone Masonic Lodge were busy pulling the altar out of the shed to set up for a special meeting when they found everything covered in ants.
“That really sums up our predicament,” Cartis said.
Their predicament is that ever since it was founded in 1984, the lodge has never had a permanent home.
For the first 17 years of its existence, the lodge rented space from a Port St. Lucie Methodist church until a new pastor decided he anted no outsdie groups using church property. These days the lodge rents space from First Congregational Church of Port St. Lucie.
It’s not as if members haven’t tried to build their own lodge. You could call Cornerstone a casualty both of the 2004 hurricanes and the subsequent busted property market.
Lodge members bought an undeveloped lot on Dyer Road in hopes of putting a permanent building on it. First there were serious setbacks with providing utilities to the site. The city of Port St. Lucie wanted $400,000 to hook them up. Then the 2004 storms destroyed the metal building intended for the site before it could even be moved to Dyer Road.


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