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A family mausoleum at Bellefontaine Cemetery brings a once-familiar funerary building type back to the St. Louis landscape. Designed by Thomas Wall of Mitchell Wall Architecture and Design, the project is not simply a sealed tomb: its route from lake-side ground, through a crypt, up an oblique stair, and onto a roof terrace turns remembrance into a choreographed architectural experience.
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Josephine Minutillo’s Architectural Record profile, published November 16, 2021, described the building as Bellefontaine’s first mausoleum in more than 70 years. The account records a highly specific commission, from granite selected for the cemetery’s acidic soil conditions to a shaft of winter sunlight that completes a cross at a precise moment. It also makes clear what remains unknown: the article reported the crypt unoccupied at publication and did not establish current occupancy, public access, tours, or visitor services.
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A mausoleum designed as a passage, not only a container
The project’s defining idea is movement. Wall organized the building so that a visitor begins outside, encounters the crypt, and then climbs toward an open rooftop terrace. He called the sequence a “metaphorical journey.” In the interpretation presented by Architectural Record, the lower level stands for death, the climb marks transition, and the elevated terrace suggests an afterlife. That symbolism is carried by actual changes in light, direction, enclosure, and view rather than by ornament alone.
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The arrangement also changes who the architecture is for. A conventional tomb can be understood primarily as a protected place for remains. Here, the family’s future visits are part of the commission: the stair is deliberately visible as the organizing element, and the terrace looks outward over the cemetery’s planted landscape. The building therefore gives the living a sequence to remember through, while retaining the privacy expected of a family crypt.
Why Bellefontaine is the right historical setting
Bellefontaine Cemetery was established in 1849 and is described in the 2021 profile as an accredited arboretum containing about 9,000 trees and shrubs. The selected site sits beside a small lake, with the mausoleum raised on a berm so the upper terrace can face the surrounding trees. The landscape matters architecturally: the building’s final destination is not an interior chapel but an outdoor room framed by an arboretum.
The cemetery already contains monuments that show how American funerary architecture changed over time. The 1891 Wainwright Tomb was designed by Louis Sullivan for brewer Ellis Wainwright. A Gothic Revival mausoleum for the family of Anheuser-Busch co-founder Adolphus Busch was erected in 1921. The Wainwright Tomb and Sullivan’s downtown Wainwright Building are both identified in the article as being on the National Register of Historic Places.
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From a family-house commission to a rare tomb project
Wall was approached in 2016 by a family for whom he was also designing a house. The request led to an unusually long-lived commission: Architectural Record reported a $5 million tomb that had recently been completed when the article appeared in 2021. Wall researched historic mausoleums in New Orleans, where compact burial buildings often combine procession, climate response, and intense material craft.
The architect said, “These types of commissions don’t exist in the real world.” The remark points to the project’s unusual design conditions. A house is expected to support daily routines and changing occupants; a mausoleum is planned for permanence, ritual, and a family’s changing relationship to memory. Wall’s research gave him precedents, but the result is not a reconstruction of a New Orleans tomb. It is a site-specific response to Bellefontaine’s landscape, regulations, geology, and Christian symbolism.
How the spatial sequence works
1. Arrival from the cemetery landscape
The approach begins outside, where the building is read in relation to the lake and planted grounds. Its raised setting gives the structure a deliberate presence without relying on a traditional spire or classical order. The route is meant to slow the visitor before entry; the surrounding arboretum supplies a living counterpoint to the permanence of stone.
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The crypt occupies the lower, enclosed portion of the sequence. In the article’s interpretation, this is the encounter with death: a compressed and materially weighty space before the route turns upward. The crypt is enclosed in polished black granite, a finish that absorbs light and contrasts with the brighter exterior stone. At the time of publication, access was limited to family members, and the article reported that the crypt had not yet been occupied. Those statements describe conditions in 2021, not a verified present-day status.
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3. An oblique stair through the center
Rather than placing circulation at the edge, Wall lets the stair pierce the center of the building. Its diagonal ascent makes the act of climbing the principal architectural event. The stair is neither a service route nor a concealed connection between floors; it is the device that links the family’s burial space to the sky and turns a small building into a vertical narrative.
4. The rooftop terrace
The stair terminates at an open terrace. From there, the view extends across Bellefontaine’s arboretum, so the final space is defined by air, trees, and changing weather. The terrace gives the family a place to stand together rather than only a room in which to look at a monument. Wall’s description of the route as a “metaphorical journey” depends on this final release from the crypt’s enclosure.
Grid, Trinity, and the family’s faith
Wall began with a grid, then adapted it to the family’s Christian faith. The design overlaps the Holy Trinity with the ideas of mind, body, and spirit. Where the grid lines intersect, important moments in the building are located: the stair, the crypt’s organization, and the points where light and structure meet.
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This is not a graphic applied after the plan was finished. The grid provides a way to coordinate geometry, movement, and meaning. It allows a family-specific belief system to guide proportions and alignments without turning the building into a literal diagram. The result is an architecture in which symbolic order is experienced through walking and looking.
Materials chosen for durability and contrast
Bellefontaine required granite, according to the 2021 article, because the cemetery’s acidic conditions can corrode marble and limestone. Wall used that requirement to establish a deliberately contrasting palette. Textured white granite forms the exterior, while polished black granite encloses the crypt. Stained glass and decorative metalwork add color, reflection, and fine-grained detail to an otherwise massive stone structure.
| Element | Material or maker | Architectural effect |
|---|---|---|
| Exterior walls | Textured white granite, reported as two feet thick in places | Gives the outside a bright, weather-resistant, monumental surface |
| Crypt enclosure | Polished black granite | Creates a darker, more inward atmosphere at the burial level |
| Glazing | Stained glass by Emil Frei & Associates | Introduces colored light and links the project to St. Louis craft traditions |
| Detail work | Decorative metalwork | Adds a tactile counterpoint to the large stone planes |
The article described Emil Frei & Associates as 123 years old at the time of publication; that age should not be treated as a current figure. Its inclusion, along with the metalwork, means the mausoleum is not only a study in heavy masonry. Small-scale artisanship is placed inside a building whose primary impression comes from mass and permanence.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A solar alignment and a family time capsule
At the top of the stair, a cruciform opening admits sunlight. The beam projects a cross onto an oversized granite panel at the stair’s base. Minutillo reported that at 11:58 a.m. on December 20, the projection fills a cross etched into the panel. That date and moment are important to the family, making the effect a private calendar embedded in the building rather than a generic daylight feature.
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Reported dimensions, capacity, and access
The following figures come from Architectural Record’s November 16, 2021 report. They describe the completed project as presented then, not a current survey or occupancy record.
| Project detail | Reported figure or condition |
|---|---|
| Overall height | 26 feet |
| Raised site | Six-foot berm |
| Area | 2,850 square feet |
| Interment capacity | Eight interments |
| Reported cost | $5 million for the tomb |
| Crypt status in the 2021 article | Unoccupied when published |
| Access described in the article | Limited to family members |
No later source in the material available for this profile establishes whether the crypt has since been used, whether access policies changed, or whether the building is available for public viewing. Bellefontaine’s accreditation as an arboretum and the project’s prominent setting should not be taken as evidence of tours or visitor services.
How the contemporary project differs from Bellefontaine’s earlier mausoleums
The comparison is most useful when it stays architectural rather than treating the buildings as competing products. Bellefontaine’s earlier tombs provide historical reference points; Wall’s project borrows the enduring category of the mausoleum while changing its formal language and the role of the visitor.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware match| Comparison axis | Earlier Bellefontaine precedents | Contemporary family mausoleum |
|---|---|---|
| Historical expression | The Wainwright Tomb represents Sullivan’s 1891 work; the Busch family tomb uses a 1921 Gothic Revival language | A contemporary composition developed from a grid, a central stair, and a terrace rather than a revival style |
| Primary experience | Monumental tombs read chiefly as commemorative objects | A planned route carries visitors from exterior ground to crypt and then upward |
| Material character | Earlier monuments establish carved and monumental precedents | Textured white granite, polished black granite, stained glass, and metalwork create contrast |
| Relationship to landscape | The historic tombs form part of Bellefontaine’s established cemetery composition | The terrace deliberately frames the lake-side site and arboretum as the end of the journey |
| Light and time | The article does not identify a comparable time-specific light event for the earlier tombs | A December 20 solar projection completes an etched cross, with a time capsule beneath |
Why the mausoleum form can still matter
The project does not argue that mausoleums have returned as a mass-market solution. The source provides no statistic about current mausoleum construction, cremation rates, or changing consumer preferences. Its significance is architectural: a form that had become less prevalent is shown capable of accommodating contemporary ideas about family, ritual, and landscape.
Wall’s commission also tests the meaning of permanence. He said, “It is meant to be there forever,” and later, “That is the endless nature of funerary design.” Those statements are not engineering guarantees; they express the design ambition of a building intended to outlast its commissioners. Granite, a protected site, and a solar alignment all serve that ambition, but they do so in different ways: material resistance, institutional setting, and recurring natural time.
The client’s wife told the magazine, “I could spend eternity there.” In context, the remark explains why the project includes more than storage for remains. The terrace, stair, stained glass, and precisely timed light give the family reasons to return, pause, and interpret the place together. The building’s afterlife is therefore both symbolic and practical: it is imagined as a durable setting for memory, not merely a final address.
What is established—and what is not
- Established by the 2021 profile: Bellefontaine’s 1849 founding; its earlier Wainwright and Busch mausoleums; Wall’s 2016 commission; the reported dimensions, cost, material requirements, capacity, and design sequence; and the attributed statements from Wall and the client’s wife.
- Not established by that profile: current occupancy, current ownership or maintenance arrangements, public opening hours, tours, ticketing, or a general invitation for visitors to enter the mausoleum.
- Best reading of the project: a private family commission that uses a public cemetery landscape as its setting, allowing architectural experience to be shared conceptually while access remains family-controlled as described in 2021.
The lasting lesson of the St. Louis project
Bellefontaine’s contemporary mausoleum revives a funerary form by making it spatially active. Its crypt is necessary, but the architecture is organized around what happens before and after that room: approach, descent, ascent, light, and a view over living trees. In a cemetery known for historic monuments, Wall’s design shows that permanence does not require copying the past. It can mean building a new ritual route whose materials, geometry, and calendar of sunlight give a family—and the landscape around it—a durable framework for remembrance.
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