About the Mountain View Cemetery

Mountain View Cemetery was Frederick Law Olmsted’s first solo commission and the only cemetery he designed. Occupying 226 acres in the Oakland hills, it offers a majestic view of the San Francisco skyline across the bay.

In the latter half of the 19th century, Olmsted found himself in California. After a brief stint working for the Mariposa Gold Mine, he was asked by the Mountain View trustees to lay out their new cemetery.

Olmsted adopted a design that suited California’s dry landscape, calling for just five species of trees and some native grasses and shrubs. He chose to mark the formal entry with level grounds. In the hilly areas, he laid out curving roads and pathways that follow the contours. The most prominent feature is a half-mile allée that starts on the level area and climbs up a gentle slope.

Olmsted envisioned a place for all persons to be buried. It was to be “a place of our common grief, our common hopes and our common faith; a place wherein we may see and feel our sympathy one with another … where all elements of society would be provided for … so that the community of the dead would be an object lesson for the community of the living.”