Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends A Landscape of Remembrance and Reflection | Page 15

sweet auburn | 2020 volume i
As Craig recalls, the main point of the master plan
was articulating a new set of goals and strategies for
Mount Auburn to approach its future more creatively.
After that, it was up to Mount Auburn to implement
it: “The master plan was very theoretical. But the
application and how it came out? That came through
the staff. It wasn’t somebody sitting there dictating
that you have to do this or that. People got the goals
and objectives and then figured out in detail how
that would happen.” The master plan set in motion
a series of changes that brought the entire site up
to much higher levels. The new business model,
featuring more creative uses of the landscape, went
far beyond simply adding more decades of selling
burial space: it repositioned the Cemetery as an
innovative industry leader. Likewise, it inspired a
new approach to horticulture
and design that has gradually
reshaped our landscape.
Previously, the grounds
were designed more to feature
specific types of trees in the
Cemetery’s collection, with
less emphasis on the holistic
landscape surrounding them.
“What people were doing
was planting trees thirty feet
apart,” Craig explains. “It
was basically a tree over
lawn cemetery.” The master
plan laid out suggestions
for strengthening Mount
Auburn’s horticulture program.
It sought to preserve what
was already successful and to
approach the landscape as a series of interconnected
“character zones.” The resultant horticultural designs
captured various themes that fit with the history and
topography of each area, simultaneously allowing
for more diversity in plantings and styles. The main
themes were Naturalistic (in line with how these
areas were first developed in the nineteenth century,
with a more informal planting style) and Ornamental
(inspired by styles of the late Victorian period and
early twentieth century, with more embellished,
formal, and gardenesque styles). Previously, Craig
remembers that “there was a fantastic collection
of plants here, and it actually looked fine,” but the
new designs have brought the collection to a new
level, with the increased focus on both the history of
the site and its ecological potential as a sustainable
urban habitat. “You have to go and find what Mount
Auburn is telling you to do and work with it. You
don’t want it to look designed. You want it to look
like it just happened, and you don’t even know
there’s the designer involved. I think that’s the way it
does look today, and that’s a big difference.”
On Mount Auburn’s staff, one of the first key
people to embrace these recommendations was
garden foreman Claude Benoit, who later went on
to serve as Assistant Director and then Director
of Horticulture. Craig and Claude began working
together to put smaller-scale changes in place,
picking out plants to replace grass in an initial group
of granite curb lots, for example. Claude quickly
became immersed in the new ideas that the plan
had to offer. “The master plan became my bible,”
Claude recollects. “I didn’t know
anything about design. I knew
about plants. This was a huge
thing to be walking around
with an artist, architect. Things
grew from there...and I had this
person that became a mentor.” In
the process, as Claude absorbed
both the master plan and
everything he was learning from
his interactions with Craig, he
combined them with his own
in-depth understanding of plants
to put this new approach to the
landscape into effect.
Current President & CEO
Dave Barnett also has a close
affinity with the master plan,
having started working at Mount
Auburn in 1993 as Director of Horticulture—a new
position that the plan recommended creating as part
of rethinking the landscape. As Dave recalls, “They
were trying to recognize professionalism in the
horticulture field differently....I was the beneficiary
of coming at a time when the gates had been opened,
the thought process had been changed. And it’s
been happening ever since.” Working with Claude,
Craig, and Bill Clendaniel, Dave also quickly became
invested in finding ways to make the master plan a
reality at Mount Auburn.
One of the first major projects inspired by the
master plan was the restoration of Consecration Dell
to a woodland habitat. Dave brought his training
in ecology to the team, and Claude became an avid
force behind using native plants to bring the space
13