Preservation of the Egyptian Revival Gateway
By Jenny Gilbert, Senior Gifts Officer
As the point of entry for more than 200,000 visitors annually, Mount Auburn’ s Egyptian Revival Gateway is the Cemetery’ s main entrance and a celebrated local landmark. For 182 years, the Gateway has welcomed visitors from around the world. Today its lodges provide shelter as well as interpretive materials for visitors about the history, art, and horticulture of Mount Auburn. An electronic kiosk is available year-round for Cemetery maps and to look up grave locations.
The Gateway is probably the most widely recognized symbol of Mount Auburn today, just as it was in the 19th-century. Dr. Jacob Bigelow( 1786 – 1879), one of the Cemetery’ s founders, designed this portal to the Cemetery in 1832 to be imposing, enduring, sacred, and sublime, and he chose the“ Egyptian style” to express those intentions. First built in wood dusted with sand to look like stone, it was rebuilt in Quincy granite by Octavius T. Roger in 1842. The cornice stone is thought to be the largest piece of granite placed in a built structure in the United States at that time. Other improvements followed soon after, including construction in 1845 of the richly detailed cast-iron perimeter fence also in the Egyptian style.
Today the imposing granite Gateway and historic castiron fence are in urgent need of preservation. In June
2014, the Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery received a $ 130,000 Capital Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund( CFF) to help fund a major $ 525,000 project to clean and repair the building’ s granite exterior and to preserve the original cast-iron fence. In order to receive the CFF grant, the Friends must raise $ 130,000 in contributed funds and are seeking support from institutions and individuals to complete the required match. Once the grant is matched, work will begin on the fence and gates while the Friends continue to fundraise for the completion of the project.
Mount Auburn Cemetery’ s Egyptian Revival Gateway is the first fully realized Egyptian Revival structure in the United States and served as a national model for later Egyptian cemetery gateways.
The much-needed preservation of the Egyptian Revival Gateway is part of an ongoing effort to improve the Cemetery’ s Entrance Precinct. This project follows closely the 2012 completion of a new covered and accessible entrance to Story Chapel.
To learn more about the project or to make a gift, please contact Jane Carroll, Vice President of Development at jcarroll @ mountauburn. org or 617-607-1919.
Left to right: Tours and programs begin at the Gatehouse. Damage to window molding and moss growing out of masonry joints. Detailed view of corrosion on horizontal rail.
Winter 2015 | 21