San Diego Hills' Builder's Creed

The Builder's Creed

I believe in a happy eternal life. I believe those of us who are left behind should be glad in the certain belief that those gone before, who believe in Him, have entered into that happier life. I believe most of all, in a Christ that smiles and loves you and me.

I therefore, know the cemeteries of today are wrong, because they depict an end, not a beginning. They have consequently become unsightly stoneyards full of in-artistic symbols and depressing customs; places that do nothing for humanity save a practical act, and that not well.

I therefore prayerfully resolve on this New Year's Day, 1917, that I shall endeavor to build Forest Lawn as different, as unlike other cemeteries as sunshine is unlike darkness, as eternal life is unlike death. I shall try to build at Forest Lawn a great park, devoid of misshapen monuments and other costumary signs of earthly death, but filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, singing birds, beautiful statuary, cheerful flowers, noble memorial architecture with interiors full of light and color, and redolent of the world's best history and romances.

I believe this things educate and uplifts a community. Forest Lawn shall become a place where lovers new and old shall love to stroll and watch at the sunset's glow, planning for the future or reminiscing the past.

A place where artists study and sketch; where school teachers bring happy children to see the things they read of in books, where little churches invite, thriumphant in the knowledge that from their pulpits only words of love can be spoken; where memorialization of loved ones in sculptured marble and pictorial glass shall be encouraged but controlled by acknowledged artists; A place where the sorrowing will be soothed and strengthened because it will be God's garden. A place that shall be protected by an immense Endowment Care Fund, the principal of which can never be expended only the income therefrom used to care for and perpetuate this Garden of Memory.

San Diego Hills
- Memorial Park and Funeral Homes -

January 2007
After 90 years the dream is finally being built in Indonesia
by the Founder of San Diego Hills