The Magnesia Temple and Baths in Sharon Springs were the village's most unique temples, with an elaborate, ornamental, domed structure built in Renaissance Revival style in 1863 by H.J. Bang, owner of the Tango Bath Houses and the Congress Hall Hotel. An exquisite example of the ironwork construction of engineer D.D. Badger of Architectural Iron Works of New York City, the temple was erected when iron buildings were gaining popularity and likely arrived in prefabricated parts shipped up the Hudson and brought by rail to Sharon Springs for assembly by Badger's team. A carved inscription on the back of the stone lion head fountain identifies the architect as L. Berger, listed in New York City directories from 1851-1871 as L. Burgee, and the sculptor as M. Kilb. The temple was once part of the Congress Hall property, said to have the most beautiful bathhouses and grounds in the village. Henry Joseph Bang, born in Darmstadt, Germany about 1800 and in the United States by 1855, was a brewer and New York restaurateur who bought land around the magnesia springs in 1860, began building the Congress Hall Hotel, and also built a wood plane factory behind his Fango and Magnesia baths. Despite the splendor of his bathhouses and temple, the magnesia spring could not rival the Pavilion Hotel's white sulphur spring, and Bang was unable to draw many bathers away from the Pavilion's wooden bath sheds. In 1875, during a great depression, Congress Hotel was totally destroyed by fire, a devastating loss for Bang and his family, and he died around 1879. After the fire, the Magnesia property was sold to the Schaefer Brewing Company family; from 1883-1920 hops were a major crop in the area, Max Schaefer used the village property as a summer home and had a major investment in local hops for Schaefer beer, and the property remained in the Schaefer family, through the Vom Saals, until the late 1980s, before restoration by Glen Goldfarb and Denise Kelly in 1999.