| Additional Information: | April 2001-Lake View Memorial Park was established in 1931. The layout is curvilinear. The principal road winds east from STH 110 (Algoma Boulevard). This cemetery features a Rustic style Gateway (WN-132/1) and a lovely, Neo-Gothic Revival Chapel (WN-131/23). The flat, ground-level markers intensify the park-like appearance of the Lake View Memorial Park. A very large, c. 1970 public mausoleum with dozens of crypts is located at the south of the cemetery known as the "memorial park."
This Neo-Gothic Revival Chapel was erected in 1935. Its random ashlar veneer, in a variety of shades ranging from cream to reddish-brown, enhances the medieval appearance of the Chapel. The building features a square, corner tower with a polygonal belfry, accented with buttresses, pointed-arched openings and diamond-paned windows. The side-gabled roof is surfaced with asphalt shingles. A cross-gable is appended to either side of the building at the opposite end from the tower. A heavy wood door in a Tudor-arched opening marks the entrance on the south-facing façade. A closed, gabled entrance porch with double doors appears on the north-facing façade. Some of the windows have been replaced with aluminum, single-light casements. Although this alteration is noticeable, the Chapel retains more than enough integrity to qualify individually for the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C.
Statement of Significance: Lake View Memorial Park and its curvilinear plan, the Gateway and the Chapel, were evaluated under Criterion C as a type of twentieth century rural cemetery called the "memorial park," a designed landscape. While the "rural" cemetery with its park-like appearance developed in the nineteenth century, it evolved over time. From the 1830s and into the 1920s, the ideal rural cemetery possessed a curvilinear plan (in imitation of nature); a chapel; a gateway; a wide variety of monuments, markers and mausoleums; and an abundance of trees and shrubs, often planted by the living in memory of their dead. After World War I, the elaborate monuments and mausoleums began to fall out of favor, and were seen as ostentatious and even vulgar. At the same time, the gas-powered lawn mower became widely available. These occurrences combined to alter the ideal appearance of a rural cemetery. The new rural cemetery incorporated a curvilinear plan, a chapel and a gateway, but the markers were placed at ground level and plantings limited, increasing the park-like appearance and making mowing easier. This new type of rural cemetery was called the "memorial park," and a new cemetery designed with this image in mind often included "memorial park" in its name. Memorial parks have been widely built since the 1920s and are quite common. |
|---|
