Newport Lots for $54,000 : Cemetery: Master-planned gated facility with an ocean view contains upscale burial plots that are becoming increasingly popular in California.
Perched atop a choice hillside, Estate Gardens is Orange County’s newest master-planned community.
The development features a clear view of Santa Catalina Island and the calming waters of the Pacific. Each residence is shrouded in privacy with a stone wall and metal gate, and parking is never a problem.
There is even a design review committee so the neighbors don’t put up anything as gauche as a plastic cactus. The price for all this seems nothing short of heaven-sent: just $54,000 to $121,000.
Has affordable housing finally come to Orange County?
Depends on your perspective.
Estate Gardens is a gated community for the dead--a private cemetery within a cemetery--now being offered at Pacific View Memorial Park & Mortuary. These upscale burial spots--essentially family plots surrounded by Slumpstone and a swinging gate--are becoming popular throughout Southern California.
No one seems to quite agree on the reasons for the increased popularity. Some observers say it’s a remnant of the materialistic ‘80s, while others view it as a wacky kind of one-upmanship among mortuaries. Mortuary operators insist the gated communities are simply a response to customer demand.
One Orange County couple, embroiled in a nasty divorce, are even fighting for custody of what Pacific View politely calls “the family estate.” Things got so heated one relative in the lawsuit felt compelled to declare that “a cemetery lot occupied by a body holds no value.”
“It’s a messy situation,” confided one of the couple’s in-laws.
Glendale-based LCB Associates Inc. has designed about 20 such gated communities, including the one at Pacific View, and estimates that thousands of people are buried in similar style.
“The demand is tremendous,” said LCB President Robert Levonian. “We’re having trouble keeping enough inventory going in some cemeteries, and I’m having trouble responding to cemeteries asking for assistance in doing this.”
Though walled-in grave sites date back to the 1800s in the United States, few are as extravagant as those at Pacific View. Cemetery operators claim the deluxe burial is a distinctly West Coast phenomenon.
“I’ve never understood you Californians,” sighed Steve Morgan, president of the Washington-based American Cemetery Assn.
Among those who have purchased gated burial plots at Pacific View are local notables including a top real estate developer, a prominent Laguna Beach doctor and a San Juan Capistrano yachtsman.
Ronald Mowry, a senior vice president at Pacific View’s parent corporation Pierce Bros., recalls the day an engineering giant came shopping.
“His daily income would have bought the park,” said Mowry, a one-time ambulance driver. “$84,000 to him would be like the two of us going out for coffee.”
Lavishness has been heaped on the dead since the beginning of time. The Egyptians built pyramids, the Mayans erected temples and Indians created the Taj Mahal.
“Entombment like this has been a desire of mankind for centuries,” said Ted Brandt, a spokesman at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale. “The price, however, is something that has separated it from the average person.”
Jessica Mitford, author of the 1960s best-selling book “The American Way of Death,” scoffs at any comparison between Pacific View and the Seven Wonders of the World.
“I rather imagine those Orange County people are not quite on a par socially with the Pharaohs,” she said. “For God’s sake, I think this whole thing is extremely scruffy.”
Even Mitford concedes, however, that people should be allowed to pay respect to the dead as they like. And Mowry deflects any criticism of Pacific View’s prices by noting the availability of a five-year payment plan.
“Kind of like a mortgage,” he said.
Pacific View’s gated communities offer owners a wide range of features. Some purchase there simply to avoid being buried next to strangers; others want to personally design the burial area. One family built beneath a hillside where there was more room for flower arrangements.
Granite markers are used to present a surname or something more general such as “the Garden of Memory” and a few families hire chi-chi landscapers to refresh the scenery every month or so.
“It’s a place where one can come and think good thoughts about those who are buried there rather than just being in a graveyard,” said Levonian, a former Forest Lawn design engineer. Ordinarily, “your parents or loved ones are buried along a slope in a cemetery. They are one of many. It’s not yours; you can’t point to it and say: ‘This is our family garden.’ ”
Mortuary officials say the gated communities are not designed to forestall an ever-increasing rate of cremations, which cost considerably less than the old-fashioned grave. The Interment Assn. of California reports that nearly 38% of all deceased Californians were cremated in 1989 and the rate in south Orange County, according to Pacific View, is even higher, about 40%.
What this is all about, according to cemetery operators, is simply an extension of the good life.
“If someone wants to spend $250,000 to buy a Rolls-Royce rather than $20,000 for a Buick, that’s their right,” said Levonian. “If someone wants to spend that kind of money on a grave, it is certainly their right too.”
Prices at O.C. Cemeteries
Cemetery, Cost of Plots, Number Location Endowment Interred Anaheim Cemetery* $350 to $450 9,000 Anaheim $140 endowment Ascension $350 to $650 3,600 Cemetery (Catholic) El Toro incl.15% endwmnt. El Toro $350 to $450 4,200 Memorial Park* El Toro $140 endowment 6,000 Fairhaven $636 to $1,156 60,000 Memorial Park Santa Ana $84 endowment Forest $345 to $3,000 54,000 Lawn Memorial-Park Cypress $46 endowment The Good $400 to $1,300 16,597 Shepherd Cemetery (Catholic)** Huntington Beach incl. 15% endwmnt. Harbor Lawn-Mount $520 to $850 9,164 Olive Memorial Park Costa Mesa $105 endowment Holy Sepulcher $300 to $1,040 25,418 Cemetery (Catholic) Orange incl. 15% endowment Loma Vista $630 to $705 30,000 Memorial Park Fullerton $100 endowment Magnolia $350 to $450 8,000 Memorial Park Cemetery* Garden Grove $140 endowment Melrose Abbey $995 to $1,495 ***22,000 Cemetery and Mortuary Anaheim $90 endowment Memory $680 to $930 12,000 Garden Memorial Park Brea $50 endowment Pacific View $750 to $3,990 22,995 Memorial Park Newport Beach $75 endowment Santa Ana Cemetery* $350 to $450 13,000 Santa Ana $140 endowment Westminster $275 to $825 58,085 Memorial Park Westminster $150 endowment
Cemetery, Plots Location Available Anaheim Cemetery* 1,200 Anaheim Ascension 8,000 Cemetery (Catholic) El Toro El Toro developing Memorial Park* El Toro Fairhaven 30,000 Memorial Park Santa Ana Forest N/A Lawn Memorial-Park Cypress The Good 10,000 Shepherd Cemetery (Catholic)** Huntington Beach Harbor Lawn-Mount 6,000 Olive Memorial Park Costa Mesa Holy Sepulcher N/A Cemetery (Catholic) Orange Loma Vista N/A Memorial Park Fullerton Magnolia 1,200 Memorial Park Cemetery* Garden Grove Melrose Abbey ***13,000 Cemetery and Mortuary Anaheim Memory 4,000 Garden Memorial Park Brea Pacific View 1,000 Memorial Park Newport Beach Santa Ana Cemetery* 8,000 Santa Ana Westminster 5,000 Memorial Park Westminster
Price ranges are based on single ground burials only; actual cost depends on location. An endowment is a one-time fee that is invested, and the earnings are used to maintain the park. The number of plots available is calculated on developed land since parks generally develop unused acreage as needed.
* Part of the Orange County Cemetery District
**The Good Shepherd Cemetery is Catholic-owned, but honors all religions.
***Figures for Melrose Abbey include all property--cemetery and mausoleum.
Source: Memorial parks listed Researched by: DALLAS M. JACKSON / Los Angeles Times
Bring Your Own Pearly Gates Walled and gated “estate gardens” are the final resting place for growing numbers of well-heeled Southern Californians, who pay from $54,00 to $121,000 per plot at cemeteries such as Pacific View in Newport Beach, illustrated below, where gated plots adjoin an ocean-view mausoleum.
