Growing up, there was always that one kid whose house everyone wants to go to. Maybe it’s because his or her mom served Nutella sandwiches with the crusts cut off for dinner. In Stacey Flowers’s case, the allure lay in her backyard, where dead bodies deliciously decomposed beneath the ground. How could any kid resist that? “We used to play ‘Ghost Ghost’ – a form of hide and go seek – for hours,” says Ms. Flowers, a public relations professional in Toronto, who refers to the cemetery behind her childhood Brace bridge home as “her playground.” Her voice falls to a hush, as though she’s narrating a ghost story: “One night, I was standing over a grave and it caved in,” she says, noting it wasn’t the act of anything exciting like a poltergeist, but rather a rotting coffin. “I sunk down into the ground, and we all freaked out and ran out screaming. That was the last time we played there.”
As Ms. Flowers got older, she says she became more respectful of the consecrated area and cemeteries in general. “It’s funny, in New Orleans, they have funerals to music – or as they call them jazz funerals. People go to graveyards as places of celebration. Here, they’re fenced off and solemn.”
Indeed, you’d be hard pressed to find a jazz trio tooting horns by grandma’s tombstone in Toronto, but in New Orleans the vestiges of death serve as a form of amusement: A Gray Line bus tour carts beignet-bloated tourists on a “ghosts and spirits” adventure to look at relics from voodoo ceremonies, vampire-slaying kits and “age-old tools used by mystical inhabitants of the city.” According to online reviews, another popular tour guide is BloodyMary, a psychic priestess certified in “voodoo bone throwin’.”
In Toronto, there are more conservative strolls through burial grounds. The Muddy York Walking Tour goes through the sublime Mount Pleasant Cemetery, which is filled with statues, fountains, gardens and trails and is the final resting place for many prominent people, such as William Lyon Mackenzie King and silent screen star Mary Pickford. The
Tiimothy Eaton family is there – its pillared crypt presided over by two regal concrete lions.
But not everyone wants to live near dead souls, venerated or otherwise. For many, the thought of headstones in the yard is a bone of contention (sorry) that is held in similar disdain as living next to a funeral home, religious institution or a school.
Andrea Feldman, a real estate agent with Re/Max Hallmark, recalls selling homes from blueprints near the Elgin Mills Cemetery in Richmond Hill in the ’90s. She says her Asian clientele refused to buy there. “That was mainly due to feng shui,” Ms. Feldman says. “They believe in chi, which is energy. What emanates from a cemetery is too yin and would be harmful to neighbouring homes.”
But a crematorium wasn’t off-limits, she says.”[The Asian community] believes all the crystals that hold the memories of the person during their lifetime have been completely destroyed by the fire during the cremation process.”
Ms. Feldman eventually sold all of the houses (though not to Asian buyers) and not at a discount, either. “Land is so valuable in Toronto that a neighbouring graveyard isn’t problematic. “There’s actually a premium on all of the houses and condos close to the Mount Pleasant Cemetery because it’s so beautiful,” Ms. Feldman says. It helps, of course, that the location is near chi-chi Rosedale, Forest Hill, Moore Park and Chaplin Estates.
Sam Dubeau, who creates custom stationery through her website, Have & Hold Design, and her partner,Michael, were thrilled to buy a condo on Merton Street beside Mount Pleasant Cemetery. (The two are diehard horror-movie fans, incidentally.) It wasn’t just the prestige of the address, but the actual property. “Once we saw the beltline at the back of our condo, it was honestly so beautiful it ended up being a plus, especially this time of year when the trees are changing colours,” says Ms. Dubeau, who often walks their pug, Roxy, through the nine-kilometre former rail line that borders the cemetery and is also a draw for cyclists and joggers.
“Neither of us is superstitious, anyway,” Ms. Dubeau adds, “so the graveyard wasn’t a factor at all.” In terms of traffic, Ms. Dubeau has also never even seen a funeral procession in the five years they’ve lived there. “It’s a really quiet area, and I work from home so it’s perfect,” she says. The cemetery also ensures another building will never obscure Ms. Dubeau’s pristine view from her window.
Toronto filmmaker Carl Laudan also appreciates his backyard graveyard. He and his wife, Kate, live in a house next to Prospect Cemetery beside Earlscourt Park at St.Clair Avenue West and Caledonia Park Road. “It’s an oasis,”
Mr. Laudan says. “The lovely thing about having that cemetery behind us is it’s a green space. It filters all the air-Toronto is so polluted, but here it’s just trees. It’s like living behind a park that no one goes through very often.” (Hey, if you can’t afford a pricey ravine lot, a less-desirable cemetery as a neighbour may be for you.) “And I find the universal symbol for ‘No Zombies’ just takes care of the dead-people problem,” he jokes.
Another plus, Mr. Laudan says, is the connected park, which attracts owls, cardinals and eagles – a surprising thing to learn given the urban setting. “There’s also a weird guy in the cemetery,” he says. “He tends to wander by the gravestones wearing branches that have fallen as antlers, and making very strange noises.”
But Mr. Laudan isn’t too concerned. After all, in the grand scheme of things, his home is a paradise. He doesn’t have to deal with loud backyard barbecues or someone’s bad taste in outdoor decor.
As Mr. Laudan puts it: “Honestly, I prefer my neighbours dead.”
10.28.2013
Join The Discussion