Mount Auburn Cemetery: An Ongoing Success Story

Halvorson Design has been collaborating with Mount Auburn Cemetery for more than 25 years, beginning with the development of the cemetery’s first comprehensive master plan in 1993.

Mount Auburn Cemetery (Photo by Ed Wonsek)

When we began working with Mount Auburn, they were running out of burial space, with only about two acres remaining for conventional burials. The iconic landscape, while beautiful, was also in need of restoration and enhancement.

Our work began with an overview of the entire cemetery and the development of landscape character zones that correlated with different periods in the cemetery’s history.

Landscape Zones from the Mount Auburn Cemetery Master Plan (Halvorson Design)

Halvorson Design’s master plan helped to:

• Extend the active life of the cemetery through innovative planning that located opportunities for expansion

• Provide attractive alternative memorialization options

• Diversify offerings beyond burials to attract a broader audience and alternative funding sources

• Preserve the historic character of this celebrated cultural landscape

• Uphold the cemetery’s prestigious legacy and standing as a ‘jewel’ of its community

Mount Auburn has been implementing our recommendations for the past 25 years and continues to be a showcase of horticulture and an active setting for a variety of cultural events. Most importantly, they now estimate their remaining burial capacity will last another 100 years!

Halvorson Design has had the pleasure and honor of collaborating with Mount Auburn Cemetery to design several of these improvements. Here are a few highlights:

Bigelow Chapel

Prominently located on a hilltop at the entrance to Mount Auburn, Bigelow Chapel has been a key focal point of the cemetery since 1846. Halvorson collaborated with Mount Auburn and architects William Rawn Associates to enhance the chapel’s grounds and entry experience to highlight and celebrate the historic architecture. (Photo by Jo Oltman)

Bigelow Chapel

The landscape is designed to complement the new crematory and event space addition, providing views of the Asa Gray Garden through the glass curtain wall of the addition and providing a peaceful courtyard in the viewing area to comfort people attending services at the chapel. (Rendering by William Rawn Associates Architects and Halvorson Design)

Asa Gray Garden

The Asa Gray Garden is one of the first open spaces to greet visitors to Mount Auburn Cemetery and sets the tone for the myriad vistas, landscape specimens and monuments that await within. (Photo by Jo Oltman)

Asa Gray Garden

Halvorson Design worked with Mount Auburn to revitalize the garden and restore its role as an important visual and social anchor linking Story Chapel with Bigelow Chapel, while offering visitors a place of year-round beauty, respite, tranquility and contemplation. (Photo by Jo Oltman)

Birch Gardens

Halvorson Design transformed a perimeter area with a chain link fence overgrown with vegetation into an innovative new burial space for 500 that features a central garden, zero-edge reflecting pool, and seven-foot-tall memorial wall. Nestled under the dappled shade of the mature tree canopy,

Birch Gardens

Birch Gardens instills a sense of timelessness that fits comfortably in the cemetery’s fabric and offers a secluded area for contemplation, solace, and healing. (Photo by Ed Wonsek)

Willow Pond

The first project in Halvorson Design’s master plan to be selected for implementation, the rehabilitation of Willow Pond reestablishes the abundant plantings that once existed around the pond’s perimeter and restores its historic, aesthetic, and ecological character.

Willow Pond

The memorial wall serves a dual purpose, as gateway to the restored pond and a communal monument, with inscriptions in the stones commemorating those buried in the adjacent landscape. (Photo by Ed Wonsek)

AUBURN LAKE

When Halvorson Design was developing the master plan for Mount Auburn Cemetery, Auburn Lake—an important body of water originally landscaped in the formal, Victorian style—was severely eutrophied and degraded. Halvorson Design worked closely with the Massachusetts Audubon Society to restore the water quality and create a diverse waterside habitat. Today, it is one of the birding hotspots in the Commonwealth.

Almy Garden

Halvorson Design has collaborated with Mount Auburn Cemetery to develop a variety of alternative memorial concepts that harmonize with the cemetery’s historic landscape. This infill burial area is designed as a garden room with memorial markers nestled in the ground cover.

Vesper Path

For Vesper Path, Halvorson Design converted a little-used road into a new area for interments that preserves the historic character of the landscape while allowing the cemetery to expand its capacity. A low granite curb lines the new stone dust path and carries the names of the deceased whose graves are carefully blended into the landscape. (Photo by Ed Wonsek)