Cemetery Considered for Landmark Status

The final resting place of Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and other cinematic greats could soon become Los Angeles’ next historical-cultural monument.

The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission has recommended that Westwood Village Memorial Park join more than 700 monuments designated citywide over the last 40 years. They include churches, homes, the Hollywood sign and a few other cemeteries.

The recommendation is going to the City Council for approval.

Even as a bustling city has sprawled around it, the site that began as a village burial ground has maintained its reputation as a serene oasis. Lately, however, the Houston-based owner’s plan to expand crypt space has drawn objections from residents on Wellworth Avenue, just south of the site. Los Angeles planning commissioners approved that proposal last month.

Allan Abshez, a lawyer for Service Corp. International, which bought the cemetery in 1996, contended that opponents are using the monument designation as a delaying tactic.

“The application was ... for the purpose of frustrating and delaying the construction,” he said.

Indeed, one result of a designation would be that any effort to secure a building permit would trigger a review taking at least six months by the Cultural Heritage Commission. However, Jay M. Oren, an architect on the commission’s staff, said commissioners had indicated that they would not object to a building permit for Service Corp.’s expansion.

Councilman Jack Weiss, who represents Westwood, said the City Council’s arts, health and humanities committee, which he heads, “will take a very close look at the recommendation.”

He said that the cemetery is “a unique property with unique characteristics,” but that it is rare for a cemetery to be recommended as a historic site “because, indeed, there is something special about every cemetery.”

Records show burials at what is now Westwood Village Memorial Park beginning in the 1880s, although local lore suggests that ranch hands and Indians had been interred there as early as the 1820s.

Much of the history involving the cemetery, which is just south of Wilshire Boulevard and east of Glendon Avenue in Westwood, is murky. But this much is known: The cemetery was originally part of the Rancho San Jose de Buenos Ayres and now is sandwiched between high-rises and homes. In 1905, the state officially established the Sunset Cemetery on several acres surrounded by grasslands and hills. In 1926, the name was changed to Westwood Memorial Park.

Spartan monuments to veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish American War and World War I are plentiful. The first mausoleum was built at the northeast corner of the site in 1952; 10 years later, Monroe was buried in the building’s west wing.

Since then, many notables have been buried there, including film director Billy Wilder and actors Walter Matthau, Natalie Wood, Dean Martin and Burt Lancaster.