Private Mausoleum Construction Boom

The following excerpts are from Tania deLuzuriaga, A place to die for, Boston Globe, Dec. 5, 2007:

[Thomas R. Hudson, Jr. has constructed on the] grassy hillside at Blue Hill Cemetery, [a] 400-square-foot Roman Doric structure * * * constructed of 450,000 pounds of Vermont granite featur[ing] 17-foot high cathedral ceilings, brass doors, and a stained glass depiction of The Last Supper. Flanked by hand-carved stone lions and set amid shrubbery, it is the biggest, most ornate memorial in sight. Some say it may be the most elaborate to be built in a Boston-area cemetery since the industrial barons erected monuments to their wealth nearly a century ago. Family members jokingly call it “The Inn.” (There’s room for everybody.)

Private mausoleums and columbaria, for cremated remains, are enjoying a revival among the rich, local grave archivists and cemetery administrators say. They point to recent additions like one at Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett built by Somerville lawyer Frank Privitera Sr. featuring a stone gazebo and a crypt, another mausoleum that was completed this year at Blue Hill Cemetery, and one built this year in Newton Cemetery. But the massive Hudson edifice is the one generating buzz in cemetery circles.

Special thanks to Kent Schenkel (Associate Professor, New England School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.