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A Morning Stroll in the Park01-01-05 | News



A Morning Stroll in the Park

Feature and photography
by Stephen Kelly, regional editor






David MacDonald, Hollywood Hills maintenance manager, gave LSMP a tour of the grounds and facilities. Here he gives instructions to one of the grounds crew in a sod conveyance custom built at Hollywood Hills.







I drive out to Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills on a gray, Monday morning, Dec. 27. Because of the holidays, the freeway is free flowing–a gift from the traffic Gods! It’s cloudy and a major storm is moving in from the north with rain predicted for most of the week. With luck the rain will hold off until I snap a few pictures.

I’ve arranged to meet with David MacDonald, the maintenance manager of Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills. I’ve only spoken with David on the phone about his work and looking forward to meeting him, seeing the property and getting a better feel for his job.

The maintenance office is inconspicuously tucked away down a side road. David drives up in a fleet pick-up truck. It’s 10:30 and he’s been on the job since 6:00 a.m.






An interment crew member uses a sod cutter to designate the area for the backhoe to dig space for a vault. The trees on the property are mostly evergreens. Pine varieties include stone, lepo and Canary Island. There are also some Holly Oak, cypress and cedar–“maintenance friendly” trees, David MacDonald calls them. In the background is a replica of Boston’s Old North Church.


Before setting out on the public areas, I ask David to show me the maintenance yard. Most of the ground maintenance equipment is Toro, although David points out a Jacobsen Rake-O-Vac and an SDI sprayer. The rake function of the Rake-O-Vac is not used, David explains, as it damages the turf and stone markers. The vacuum is used, but the interior of the vacuum chamber has been reinforced to withstand damage from pine cones and rocks sucked into the unit.

The 4500-D Toro Reel Master I’m looking at is 11-12 years old (but who’s counting lawnmower birthdays). There are four of them and they are out cutting grass five days a week. Their longevity is the responsibility of the three staff mechanics, who also take care of the hearses and the fleet of half-ton pickups. Other mowers about the yard are 45 and 48 inch rotaries. David points out a Road Runner, a curious truck, circa 1950s or early 1960s, modified to be a dump truck and kept running all these years. The other modified vehicles are the sod carriers, broad-bed conveyances custom built by the maintenance staff from spare parts. All the equipment and vehicles that trod over the lawns have been adjusted to “leave less footprints” and modified for the park’s hilly conditions.

There are also four-wheel drive Toro utility vehicles, and I spy a PTO (tractor power take-off) generator.

While in the equipment yard, a tow truck with a hydraulic flat bed pulls in and hauls up one of the service pick-ups. It has a coolant leak and needs attention.






The foreground is a new terrace addition. The rolls of tall fescue have just gone in. David points out that it’s difficult to keep a pure fescue lawn, as it is invaded over the years by Kikuyugrass and Bermudagrass. All remains under the turf, cremains or otherwise, are placed in concrete vaults to keep the turf from sinking. Cremation wall units (a columbarium) are seen through the arch. The memorial to Cubby Broccoli, the producer of the early James Bond films, is at right.
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The yard includes a gas pump and a number of outdoor services bays, including a lube area. David shows me the tool room building. A utility vehicle is on a hydraulic lift for servicing.

In the office, David introduces me to Luis Gonzalez, the grounds maintenance superintendent, busy with some paperwork at his desk. Luis handles 22 workers and another 14 temporary personnel. He previously worked for parks and recreation in Rancho Simi Valley, for Valley Crest and, most recently, at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Luis and David are graduates of Cal Poly Pomona, David in ornamental horticulture, and Luis in park administration. David has been with Hollywood Hills since 1987, and Luis for a year and a half. The two joke about the rivalry between Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The schools collaborate each year on building a float for the New Year’s Day Rose Parade in Pasadena. The Pomona school does the front of the float, and San Luis always does the “rear” end.

“What is your biggest challenge,” I ask Luis. “Satisfying the public,” Luis responds with no hesitation. About a third of his time is spent dealing with families, educating them about how things are done, and listening to their concerns. He explains he has 175 acres to worry about, but individuals sometime get upset about the family member’s plot, to the extent that people have told him, “I’ll kill you.”






This nature path area is a recent addition for cremains, which will go into vaults under the faux rocks. The path is crushed granite and raked daily. The cherry laurel at the wood fence marks a ravine. Deer have retarded the growth of these trees by scraping their antlers on the young trees.


“People will complain about the flowers or something else, but there are usually underlying issues,” Luis adds. “When you talk to them more, you see that what they are really complaining about is some family-related matter.” And it is important to deal with these touchy issues, as these people are really long-term customers.

As my visit is between Christmas and New Year’s, many of the staff are off, but the holidays are busy visiting times for families bearing flowers and other decorative touches for the markers.

“There are posted rules for what can be placed by the grave markers, but during the holidays the park gives people more leeway,” David explains.

What kind of inappropriate items do people place? I ask Luis. “Eighteen-inch metal fencing, big pots 18-inches wide weighing 40-50 pounds, Christmas trees,” he begins. “People even try to do their own maintenance, bringing tools, even weed whackers.” I laugh, but I would not want to approach a patron busily whacking the turf around a grave marker.






The internment crew comprises 12 men. The digging is ceaseless, 12 plots on a slow day, twice that many on a busy day. One of the biggest challenges is restoring the disturbed turf and creating a smooth transition from maker to marker.


On grounds maintenance, David and Luis agree that their greatest challenge is the constant interments. An interment crew of 12 workers is responsible for digging new burial plots. A light day would be 12 plots; a busy day, twice that many. The constant digging, of course, disrupts the turf and sod, but also interferes with planting, watering and general grounds maintenance.



The Park Tour

We hop into one of the pick up trucks and head out.

My first view is of expansive hills of lawns full of flowers and colorful decorations. David explains that the normal grown maintenance is on hold for the next two weeks, after which all the thousands of flowers and ornamentation will be picked up by the ground crews to allow the property to return to its regular moving and trimming maintenance.

Generally speaking the lawns are mowed once a week and there is a three-week rotation for trimming the head stone area around trees. No more than three inches of growth is allowed around the trees. People are alerted, of course, about the schedule and that the flowers will be removed.

I recall my phone conversation with David on the subject of deciduous trees. “Every cemetery establishes their own standards of appearance,” he’d told me. “The philosophy of Forest Lawn is for the cemetery to look like a park. Dead leaves are too gloomy.”






The four 4500-D Toro Reelmasters in the maintenance yard are usually out cutting grass five days a week. Some of the units are 12 years old, a nod to well-built and maintained equipment.


Sure enough, no leaves in sight, quite a contrast to an out-of-state city cemetery I had recently viewed while on a business trip. Knowing I was soon to write a piece on cemetery maintenance, I walked the city cemetery on a late, gray, Saturday afternoon. It was decidedly cold (it would snow that night), and no maintenance personnel were about. Leaves were scattered deeply about the ground. True, the leaves were colorful, but they would soon start decaying. This was the antitheses of Forest Lawn, a prototype of a “scary” cemetery: prominent headstones, spooky trees–the kind of cemetery kids dare one another to venture into on Halloween.

David drives me by a new terrace area just built. He drives up over the curved curb (all the park curbs are curved for this reason) and up the side of the hill. We park and walk up to the terrace level. New tall fescue has been rolled out and new mausoleums have been constructed for cremains.

David explains that two gardeners have been assigned this area. Its their “baby” to take care of.

The crews are broken into three groups: interment, grounds (section care-mowing, turf vacuuming, tablet trimming, perimeter brush clearing, irrigation), and the gardening crew (admin. building and churches). There is cross-training for all the crews.






The park continues to expand. We stopped our tour to view the new grounds and road construction, which is subcontracted. The cement truck had just arrived. The roads throughout the cemetery are tooled patterned concrete with a rock salt finish. David said the irrigation is about to go in. The park uses Hunter heads with Superior valves (6-10" valves). About one-third of the park is still hand watered.


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.






Butelons planted in the Woodlands have been damaged by deer, as have the cherry laurels that border the area. The best strategy is not to plant young trees and shrubs, favorites of deer, and to view which native plants the deer leave alone.


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.






At Hollywood Hills you can almost forget you?EUR??,,????'???re in a cemetery, but in back of the maintenance yard, far removed from public sight, the concrete vaults bring you back to reality. The vaults are manufactured on-site by pouring concrete into cast forms.


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.



The Forest Lawn Philosophy

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.”






There is a fleet of half-ton pick-up trucks for the maintenance crew. This particular one has sprung a coolant leak and is going in for repairs. Three mechanics are employed to keep the vehicles and equipment running. A lube bay is at back right.




The Hills Are Alive, but Not All the Inhabitants

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.



A Morning Stroll at a Glance


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