Landscape Information
Located between Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road, roughly five miles east of downtown, this 285-acre cemetery was named for its views to Lake Erie. In 1869 the Lake View Cemetery Association acquired nearly 200 acres of agricultural land and commissioned landscape gardener Adolph Strauch to design the grounds. Strauch envisioned the cemetery as an arboretum, bird sanctuary, and park, and laid out curvilinear drives following the site’s rolling topography. The drives afford visitors a scenographic landscape experience, sequentially unveiling expanses of lawn, naturalistic lakes, and specimen oaks, sycamores, and beech trees.
In 1890 the James Garfield Memorial was sited atop a hill in the southwest portion of the grounds. Designed by architect George Keller, the memorial and tomb feature an 80-foot-tall circular stone tower. In 1897 landscape gardener Ernest Bowditch improved the cemetery’s infrastructure and located a new entrance along Euclid Avenue. Much of the labor was performed by Italian gardeners and stonemasons, many of whom settled in the adjacent Little Italy neighborhood. The Neo-Classical Wade Memorial Chapel, (Hubbell and Benes architects; interiors Louis Tiffany), was erected near the cemetery’s two prominent water features in 1901.
From 1903-1955, German nurseryman Ernst Muny established thousands of plants, substantially increasing the arboretum’s collection. Landscape architect A.D. Taylor prepared a master plan in the 1920s, providing guidelines for vista management and additional plantings. Victory gardens were established in 1940 and the following year Dr. William Weir donated his collection of daffodil bulbs, which were planted on a slope abutting a curving drive. In 1978 the Lake View Cemetery Dam, the largest in Cuyahoga County, was constructed above the cemetery’s two lakes for flood control. The Garfield Memorial and Wade Memorial Chapel were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and the cemetery was included in the National Park Service Underground Railroad Network to Freedom in 2020.
