Jack White has dropped $142,000 towards Detroit’s Masonic Temple — where he’s performed nine times — to save it from foreclosure.

The temple (the world’s largest of its kind) had gotten into tax debt in recent years, and had until yesterday (June 3) to pay its outstanding balance avoid foreclosure. White, one of Detroit’s most famous musicians (whose mother once worked as an usher at the temple) footed the entire bill.

“Jack’s donation could not have come at a better time and we are eternally grateful to him for it,” said Detroit Masonic Temple Association president Roger Sobran, according to the Detroit Free Press. “Jack’s magnanimous generosity and unflinching loyalty to this historic building and his Detroit roots is appreciated beyond words.”

The massive temple takes up an entire block in Detroit’s Cass Corridor neighborhood. It contains two theaters (the Masonic and the Cathedral), a chapel, ballrooms, offices, and bowling lanes.

The Cathedral Theater, which seats 1,586 patrons to the Masonic’s 4,400, will be renamed the Jack White Theater in the rocker’s honor.

Acts like the Rolling Stones, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and Rush have played the Masonic. [Billboard.biz]