Mausoleums in Demand : Burial Business Has No Trouble Getting Off Ground

One man ordered a custom-built granite mausoleum with two crypts included for the family’s German shepherd dogs.

Another family asked for a specially designed walk-in above-ground burial building with space for a son’s favorite car.

A third family had a mausoleum designed to include a favorite chair from their sitting room for relatives to use when they come to meditate the past.

They’re part of a growing market for preassembled or custom-built solid mausoleums that inspired Cold Spring Granite Co., a leading granite supplier with revenue of about $150 million in 1988, to establish a Private Estates division to focus on what had been a small part of company business.

“There’s a trend of people wanting to be buried above ground and it’s increasing every year,” said Wally Pattock, vice president of memorialization. “It’s not something we developed, it’s demand by the people.”

Of the approximately 2.3 million people who die in the United States each year, nearly 10% have arranged for mausoleum entombment, according to Cold Spring Granite, which has corporate offices in St. Cloud, Minn., and two of its fabrication plants in the nearby Cold Spring area.

People have several reasons for choosing above-ground burial, said Teresa R. Bohnen, whose title is market manager-memorialization for Private Estates.

“The people most interested in private estates are those who were nearly famous, who had major accomplishments but perhaps didn’t get the recognition they feel they should have,” Bohnen said.

The mausoleums “are intended for the person who is looking for a more exclusive form of immortality,” said James Terhaar, general manager of the Private Estates division.

The growth of the private mausoleum industry, he said, is a carry-over from the increase in burials in large community mausoleums around the country.

Mausoleums have been popular in the southern United States, where the water table or sandy soil makes in-ground burial impossible in many areas, the company officials said.

“I always hear the words, ‘It’s clean, it’s dry above ground,’ ” Terhaar said.

Cold Spring Granite sold between 200 and 300 preassembled mausoleum units in 1988. The units contain from two to six crypts and range in estimated retail price from $12,000 to $40,000, Bohnen said. There is no upper limit on the cost of custom units, which have been sold for as much as $1.5 million.

Except for highly specialized custom work, all sales of Private Estates mausoleums are through cemeteries or monument retailers.

The wealthy isn’t the only group that buys mausoleums. Middle-aged and elderly people also are customers, Terhaar said.

“It really runs the gamut of society. In our (local) cemetery, we have a guy who worked in the plant, crating products,” he said. “It goes all the way up. It’s not so much the ability to pay, it’s more a desire for above-ground entombment.

“Certainly in number we sell more at the low end. That is within the means of many, many more people,” said Terhaar, who estimated that the Private Estates division represents 2% to 3% of Cold Spring Granite’s total sales.

“We’re trying to double that this year,” he said.

While there are several other companies in the country that make mausoleums, Cold Spring Granite offers special service in helping retailers sell the products and sending crews to cemeteries to erect the buildings, said Terry Carlson, president of St. Charles Memorial Works in St. Charles, Ill., a retail business that has bought mausoleums from Cold Spring Granite.

“It’s not a very common sale,” said Carlson, who has sold nine mausoleums ranging in price from $12,000 to $750,000 in 25 years of business. “I would say the largest percentage of monument shops, like I am, never even sell one during their time in business.”

Customers who buy the larger, walk-in mausoleums normally are affluent families, he said in a telephone interview.

“It continues their life style, their honored place in society, in death as well as in life. I really feel it’s a prestigious type of purchase,” said Carlson.

But sometimes, he said, retailers have to let customers know the mausoleums are an option.

“I think the dealer has to show the product. It’s like buying any other item. If you don’t know about the Cadillac and they only show you Fords, you’re gonna buy a Ford,” he said.