In 1790, the Commissioners of the District held a competition, seeking designs for the future executive mansion. A prize of $500 would be awarded to the winning architect. Hundreds of hopeful American architects participated--including Thomas Jefferson, who submitted his design anonymously. But the Commissioners chose instead the blueprint of a young Irish immigrant, James Hoban. On July 18, 1792, the Commission awarded James the $500 and invited him to "oversee and implement construction of the President's House." Hoban based his design on the Leinster House in Dublin (1745-1751). Why had Hoban chosen the Leinster House for his model? Well, to understand the answer to that question, you'd have to know a little bit more about the history of Freemasonry in Jimmy's homeland, Ireland. The man who built the Leinster House was James Fitzgerald, the 20th Earl of Kildare. He began construction in 1745, the year of the civil war in Scotland which culminated in the defeat of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" at Culloden. The Duke was also a key figure in Irish Freemasonry. The original lodge papers of the Knights Templar Kilwinning Lodge No. 75 and the Grand Master's Lodge of Dublin disappeared during the 1790s. However, in 1849, the Duke of Leinster claimed that a century earlier, on January 3, 1749, his great-grandad, James Fitzgerald, the 20th Earl of Kildare, had founded the Grand Master's Lodge. Curiously, one of James Fitzgerald's ancestors was involved with the original Knights Templar. According to The History of the Knights Templar, Maurice fitzGerald invited the Templars to organize banking houses in Dublin. Another weird link with Freemasonry and the Knights Templar came on Saturday, October 13, 1792, when a group of Masons, Hoban among them, laid the cornerstone of the White House. According to researcher David Ovason, "A letter submitted by 'a gentleman offers the only surviving eyewitness version of the Masonic cornerstone laying, which was held on Saturday, October 13, 1792, when the Georgetown Lodge No. 9 of Maryland gathered for the ceremony." In the summer of 1814, Admiral Cockburn landed a British army at Head of Elk, Maryland, and opened an offensive against Washington, D.C. All of the federal buildings were put to the torch, including the White House. But, midway through the blaze, thunderclouds drifted in from the west, and a torrential downpour dumped two inches of rain on the White House. The fire was extinguished, and the mansion was saved. Immediately Hoban began work on restoring the White House in every detail. In this he was assisted by his good friend and fellow Mason, Benjamin Henry Latrobe. In particular, Latrobe wanted to add two porticos to the White House. One on the north side, which resembled the entrance to a Greek temple. This is not at all surprising, given that Latrobe designed the original St. John's Church, which stands across from the White House on Lafayette Square and looks like the old temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis. But the south side portico was to be completely different, a semi-circular structure reminiscent of an ancient solar temple. Hoban supervised the project, based on Latrobe's original 1808 design. It is the White House's south portico that faces the sun and, more importantly, the 555-foot obelisk we now call the Washington Monument. The obelisk stands at the exact center of the city, according to Ovason. If you were to draw a straight line from the White House's south portico to the Washington Monument, and then continue that line in the same direction, it would take you across the Potomac River to Alexandria, Virginia and the George Washington Masonic Memorial, which is an exact replica of the original lighthouse that guarded the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt.