The City of Rochester, acting through its Department of Environmental Services, wished to undertake a project to nominate the historic Mount Hope Cemetery to the National Register of Historic Places. Established in 1838, Mount Hope is America’s oldest municipally owned Victorian-style cemetery, set in the heart of Rochester, above the east bank of the Genesee River and adjacent to historic Highland Park. Its 197-acre park-like landscape holds thousands of markers and monuments and several architecturally significant historic buildings, set within undulating topography, near kettle-hole ponds, and under a mix of shade and flowering trees. It holds the graves of many prominent Americans making it significant on both the local and national levels. While a portion of the cemetery is part of the Mount Hope/Highlands National Register District, established in 1974, the entire landscape—and the features within—have not until this point received such recognition. The goal of the project was to secure this honor through research, documentation, photography, and preparation of the written and illustrated National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form.
Landmark Consulting, in partnership with Martha Lyon Landscape Architecture, was commissioned to conduct this nomination process, communicate directly with the State Historic Preservation Office on the City’s behalf, and see the project though official designation to the National Register.
In addition to the standard research and documentation required for a National Register nomination, our team developed a comprehensive bibliography of all primary and secondary resources relevant to the historic cemetery including both written (books, manuscripts, reports) and graphic (historic photographs, maps, drawings) resources. Using existing data provided by the City, a base (sketch) map of the cemetery was developed and used to locate features such as landscape elements, significant monuments, mausoleums, all buildings or structures, and the three sets of entrance gates included in the nomination.
Landmark Consulting was responsible for the research, documentation, descriptions, and significance statements for all the structures, which included 86 mausoleums, two chapels, the 1897 Gatehouse, an old farm house, and a fountain and a gazebo, while Martha Lyon Landscape Architecture focused on the landscape features and key components.