With the cooler weather and dormant grasses, David doesn’t expect to need to trim the stone markers until the end of February or beginning of March.
We next drive by the new grading project, land being prepared for sod. The cemetery just keeps expanding. A construction crew is on hand to pour cement for the new road. The water lines are also about to go in.
As we drive on, I see some trees have recently been pruned. Arbor care these days is contracted out. “There is enough tree work to keep a crew busy, but we found it difficult to keep a crew trained, plus it’s dangerous work.” Rodent control is also subcontracted.
We proceed further up the hill to the newer properties. A funeral cortege is headed toward us.
“Nothing can interfere with the interments,” David notes. “When a funeral group passes by the workers, they must stop what they’re doing.” For this reason, the crews start at 6:00 a.m., two hours before opening time. When the park closes at 5 p.m., the irrigation commences.
We walk the terraced property, called gardens or companion area (vaults are stacked here). The garden lots offer the privacy of low walls and permanent plantings and statuary.
As we drive, David points out a man by a marker who “spends his whole day here” in mourning.
Because there are no upright tombstones on the ground, the cemetery grounds look like a hill-side park.
We stop at a new experimental area, the “Woodlands.” Here is a crushed granite path meandering about a rocky slope. On closer inspection, these are mostly faux rock and beneath them are various sizes of vaults for cremains. It’s an attractive alternative to the typical columbarium. No one’s remains are here yet, but there is a name plate on one rock as an example.
As we walk the Woodlands, we notice several shredded plants (butelons). “This is not good,” David says. He points to the wood fence at the top of the Woodlands, bordered by cherry laurels. Deer have prevented the laurels from filling out the top of the ravine. “The deer scrape their antlers on the trees,” he explains. I ask about using Deer-Off, but he says the property is just too large, plus the rains will wash away the repellent.
As we wind up the tour, David indicates the crews make it to every internment location at least once a week. I ask if he still enjoys his work after all these years.
“It’s not like landscape maintenance anywhere else. You’re providing a service above and beyond plants and shrubs.” And from the looks of the grounds, his crews do a great job.
Forest Lawn Cemetery was founded in 1906 in today what is part of Glendale. There was no forest, and no lawn, only stone tablets, headstones and monuments. The real story began when Dr. Hubert Eaton came west to sell plots for the cemetery in 1912, succeeding to the extent that he was named general manager in 1917. He was now in charge of how the property looked. He was perturbed by the morose climate of the cemetery. He believed in a happy eternal life, and so resolved, in writing (“The Builders Creed”) to construct a “great park, devoid of misshapen monuments–filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, singing birds, beautiful statuary, cheerful flowers, noble memorial architecture with interiors full of light and color, and redolent of the world’s best history and romances.”
Hollywood Hills, long a refuge for many of the most recognizable names in the movie biz, evokes glamour, success and riches. Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Stiller and Renee Zellweger, to name a few Hollywood biggies, live and breath here, so it has a certain panache.
And when the stars and other well-heeled denizens depart the terrestrial plane? Well, naturally, the place to ride out the afterlife is up at 6300 Forest Lawn Drive?EUR??,,????'??+Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills. Many of the stars are here: Hollywood icons (Stan Laurel, Buster Keaton, Betty Davis); the beauties (Dorothy Lamour, Julie London); the character actors (Charles Laughton, Ralph Bellamy, Rod Steiger), the creators of characters (Albert Broccoli, original producer of the James Bond movies, Bob Kane, creator of Batman); just “characters” (Leo Durocher, Scatman Crothers); the comedians (Ernie Kovacs, Godfrey Cambridge); the musicians (Liberace, Steve Allen); TV personalities (Freddie Prinze, Jack Webb, John Ritter); the tough guys (George Raft, William Conrad, Telly Savalas); the cowboys (Gene Autry, Gabby Hayes); the singers (Andy Gibb, Rick James); the notorious (Bonny Lee Blakley); and America’s favorite TV family (from 1952 to 1966) the Nelsons–Rickie, Ozzie and Harriet. After the Nelsons’ home in Hollywood Hills was sold in 1980, there were reports of it being “haunted.”
There are even those in the cemetery that have “moved,” as it were: Lucille Ball, just “Lucy” to her generations of fans, was buried at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills in 1989, but relocated in 2002 at the request of her children to her home town, Jamestown, New York.