A stairway to heaven opens for business

Seventy-six years after he designed it, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Blue Sky Mausoleum was unveiled to the public in Buffalo, N.Y., this week, the work of Forest Lawn Cemetery and a Wright-trained architect who dusted off the late master’s designs and undertook construction earlier this year.

The Blue Sky differs from typical mausoleums in that it has no ceiling or walls -- not man-made, anyway. Wright, adept at blending art and nature, saw the sky as the ceiling and the trees as walls. Twenty-four crypts, each with room for two coffins, are available for sale to the public at prices that are expected to rise as the mausoleum fills. A published report had one crypt selling for $300,000.

But the $1.2-million mausoleum is meant to be more than a final resting place for Wright aficionados. Tourism officials hope it will give architecture buffs even more reason to visit a city that prides itself on works by Wright, Louis Sullivan and Henry Hobson Richardson. Two other never-built Wright structures, a gas station and a boathouse, are under construction, and two Wright-designed homes are being restored.

“Together it’s an incredible bonanza for our city,” said Fred Whaley, president of Forest Lawn Cemetery, which sought out former Wright apprentice Anthony Puttnam to ensure that Wright’s vision was followed.