Visiting cemeteries for fun might not be at the top of most people’s list of favorite pastimes nowadays. But that wasn’t always the case. In fact, through much of American history, cemeteries played a fundamental role in society and leisure. Before major cities established their public parks, many people would use cemeteries for picnics and other social engagements. The recent popularity on the Internet of old Victorian-era photos of family members posing with the mummified bodies of deceased loved ones shows that our modern day queasiness with death was not nearly as profound in earlier periods of American history.
Americans’ feelings about death have changed over the years, and the way we use cemeteries has evolved drastically over the last several decades, too. Cremation has skyrocketed in popularity throughout much of the country, and while inhumation still remains popular in the St. Louis region, the trend is happening here as well. This author has chronicled the ill health of many of the area’s cemeteries, which have suffered not only from a lack of land but a lack of interest in buying the pricey graves and crypts that once sustained these burial grounds.
Which is all the more reason why Bellefontaine Cemetery (and Arboretum these days as well) continues to be one of this author’s favorite places to visit in the entire region. Having constantly reinvented itself over the last century and a half, Bellefontaine is in the midst of another reinvention. Treating its grounds not just simply as dirt in which to bury bodies, the cemetery has increasingly envisioned its landscape of rolling hills, plateaus and valleys as its greatest asset.
Enter landscape architect Herb Schaal. Brought in by Bellefontaine to redesign a previously disrupted portion of the cemetery grounds, Schaal has worked all over the United States (he even designed the garden at St. Louis’s own Children’s Hospital). During a recent visit to the cemetery, Schaal and the cemetery staff showed this author around the newly completed Wildwood Valley Gardens, located in the southwestern quadrant of Bellefontaine. Schaal joked that he was hired for the commission because he was “unimpeded by experience”—even though he has designed dozens of gardens, this was the first time for a cemetery.
Schaal did not have a completely blank canvas. Back in the mid-20th Century, at the behest of the City of St. Louis, the cemetery filled in a ravine, channeling the water runoff into a pipe that still runs under the site. Two lakes, one at each end of the gently sloping terrain where Wildwood Valley now stands, are reminders of the previous natural landscape. In the middle of this, the cemetery built a columbarium several years ago, sometimes described as “flying saucer” in appearance. This author does not think the design of the columbarium is that bad, but understands the criticisms. To makes a long story short, Schaal was tasked with fixing what others had done to the site in the last half century.
Schaal, in tandem with garden designer William Cullina, returned nature to the valley. Imagining a gently curving stream that cascades over native limestone, Schaal created a stunningly beautiful and evocative landscape that takes inspiration both from nature and human culture, the result of examining dozens of different types of streams in Missouri. He carefully wound a bubbling stream around the columbarium, softening the structure’s geometric rigidity. The path that guides the visitor through the site widens and narrows in response to the terrain. Occasionally, the path crosses the stream on solid, rectangular blocks of stone, as water flows underfoot. Throughout the gardens, semi-private cremation gardens, available for purchase, allow for short detours to monuments off the main path.
Schaal personally inspected the placing of the giant blocks of native stone in order to assure that they were oriented in a believable, natural manner. Here and there, among the regular stones, unique stones, such as one sculpted by water or another showing the growth of vegetation on its surface, casually break the rhythm of the path.
Sound also plays a critical role in the garden layout. The speed of the water is modulated over its course flowing through the gardens; at various points, it gurgles by almost silently, while at the next bend, the water noisily cascades over a small waterfall. Accompanying the sounds of the garden are the scents of various flowers, which were freshly planted when the author visited. The newness of the garden requires some imagination with the trees. While small right now, when grown to maturity, the trees will provide critical shade and framing of the garden paths.
Speaking of framing, Schaal has created a composition that almost seems ready-made for photography. Around each bend in the path, a carefully composed painting of flowers, stone, and brick unfolds in front of the viewer. Even in its infancy, the garden is already picturesque. And if one looks beyond the confines of the garden, to the traditional mausolea and gravestones of the cemetery, the old and new seem to blend together seamlessly. One family even chose to move their historic plot marker to Wildwood Valley, further blending the boundaries of the historic with the newly constructed.
Wildwood Valley is the first component of Bellefontaine’s master plan (more about that in the future) that seeks to make the cemetery more than just a cemetery. A new visitors’ center, along with additional gardens, will transform the historic grounds into more than just a static arrangement of mausolea and gravestones. Just as in the past, Bellefontaine hopes to transform the grounds into a place where people visit not just to tend to graves, but to enjoy the natural beauty of the rolling hills and arboretum. With Herb Schaal’s new Wildwood Valley Gardens, Bellefontaine is well on its way.
UPDATE
After posting the story, Schaal contacted us, wanting to make sure we credited the many other experts who worked on this project, including “Earen Hummel, the in-house Landscape Architect who oversaw the project and procured all the trees and perennials; Kyle Cheesborough, the in-house horticulturalist who collaborated on plant selection, managed the planting and will maintain the garden; Mark Gaia, who managed the construction contract; and Jim Fetterman and Rick Kacenski of dtls-studio, the Saint Louis landscape architectural firm who did the construction documents, and provided onsite inspections. It was them (not me) who actually visited the natural Missouri streams to develop the prototypical rock placement and water effects. Pat Downs of Brookside Contracting and his highly skillful craftsmen who sourced and placed the rock in the stream and built the meandering pathways; John Smith Masonry built the beautiful limestone memorial walls. Also, there was Nancy Ylvisacker, president, and a number of board members who kept a close eye on the design and construction and consistently insisted on a top-quality project.”
Bellefontaine Cemetery is located at 4947 West Florissant. For more information, call 314-381-0751 or go to bellefontainecemetery.org. We also recommend liking the cemetery’s Facebook page, which just happens to be one of the richest sources of St. Louis biography and history around.
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via e-mail at [email protected].
