Mount Auburn Cemetery, the country’s first rural garden cemetery and a National Historic Landmark, opens a new Welcome Center at its Egyptian Revival Gateway on September 23. The 175-acre Cambridge and Watertown site draws more than 200,000 visitors a year, and until now it lacked a dedicated arrival space to match the scale of what’s inside.
The Gateway has stood at the cemetery’s entrance since 1832 — one year after Mount Auburn’s founding — and was rebuilt in Quincy granite a decade later. Its design influenced cemetery entrance architecture across the United States. For much of that history, the structure functioned as a true threshold: visitors arriving on foot or by horse-drawn carriage passed through it as their first encounter with a then-radical idea, that a cemetery could offer beauty and public inspiration alongside burial and remembrance. The new Welcome Center returns it to that purpose.
What visitors will find inside includes staff and volunteer docents who can help locate loved ones’ graves, provide wayfinding across the grounds, and connect visitors to Mount Auburn’s range of programming. A curated gift shop, floral tributes, and a new bluestone plaza — where guided tours will depart — round out the space. The center will be open daily from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., including weekends.
“Mount Auburn helped introduce America to the idea that a cemetery could serve the dead, comfort the bereaved and welcome the living,” said Matthew Stephens, President and CEO. “We want people to understand from the moment they arrive that Mount Auburn is a sacred place of remembrance and also a place of beauty, history, nature, learning and human connection.”
The opening fits a broader national trend: historic cemeteries are increasingly investing in visitor infrastructure and community programming to deepen their ties with the living. Mount Auburn already runs birding and horticulture programs, artist residencies, concerts, meditation sessions, and the annual SOLSTICE experience — all free to enter, 365 days a year.
A public celebration marks the September 23 opening. More information is available at the Mount Auburn Cemetery website.
