From the Black Dahlia to Mac Dre: The bodies of Mountain View

Downtown Oakland can be seen from Mountain View Cemetery. Downtown Oakland can be seen from Mountain View Cemetery. Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Image 1 of / 37 Caption Close From the Black Dahlia to Mac Dre: The bodies of Mountain View 1 / 37 Back to Gallery

There may be no cemetery in America more picturesque than Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery, and likely none with a more varied list of clients. The beautiful 220-acre hillside graveyard, immediately visible to anyone driving east over the Bay Bridge, is a lush, stunning and strangely peaceful place. The bodies that found their way to the East Bay hills vary from infamous murder victims and hip-hop pioneers to famed chocolatiers and railroad tycoons.

Many of the more famous mausoleums and giant crypts, the resting place for many of San Francisco's most historic founders, line the crest of the hill along what became known as Millionaire's Row.

The tranquil grounds don't feel creepy, and wandering the hill alongside other visitors does not feel invasive. Although there are more somber areas below the celebrated Millionaire's Row, such as the heartbreaking Children's Plot, where pinwheels and flowers gently flutter in the sun, and the unmarked area of land known as Stranger's Plot, the resting place for 200 unknown burials, most of which were the war dead, suicides or criminals from the early 20th century.

San Francisco outlawed new burials within city limits in 1900, and later evicted all existing cemeteries in 1912, so many famed figures from the city purchased plots at the top of the cemetery in Oakland, giving them a great view of the city they helped build. Some of these crypts are bigger than a San Francisco studio apartment. The names, deeply engraved in the west-facing marble and granite mausoleums, include those of Italian American chocolatier Domingo Ghirardelli; the 13th mayor of Oakland, Samuel Merritt; five former California governors; coffee millionaire J. A. Folger; and Andre Hicks (a.k.a. Mac Dre), Bay Area rapper, record label owner, and producer. Dre's grave is often visited by fans who leave blunts and bottles of Hennessy on the stone.

The cemetery's sunny meadows and weaving pathways were masterfully designed by the father of American landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed New York's Central Park. It's hard to describe how the design of the hill, coupled with the panoramic view and light, have created a serene tranquility among the dead. On any given day, at sunset, the cemetery gathers visitors and photographers to take in the sight of the sun dropping into the Pacific over San Francisco’s ever-changing skyline, from the line of giant crypts at the crest of the hill.

Other famous hillside grave-dwellers include Elizabeth Short, better known as the victim of the infamous Hollywood "Black Dahlia" murder; Julia Morgan, the first female architect in California and genius behind Hearst Castle; and Glenn Burke, the first openly gay player in Major League Baseball.

The grounds are far more than a place for the dead though, unlike most cemeteries, Mountain View Cemetery is open to the public. On any given day dog-walkers, cyclists and even skateboarders can be seen passing through the headstones.

The nonprofit Mountain View Cemetery hosts free concerts and tours throughout the year, and even pumpkin festivals on Halloween. The cemetery's manager, Kristie Ly, told me that Oaklanders often stop by the grounds to eat lunch, and parents often bring children to play on the grass, picnic and take in the view. "I like to think of the space not as a scary cemetery, but a place for the living," she said.

For anyone who would like to join the millionaires in the next life, Ly said that they are currently working on undeveloped land in the cemetery to make 3,000 to 5,000 new plots available by the summer.

Twice-monthly free walking tours of the grounds start from the entrance to the cemetery at the end of Piedmont Avenue on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month, at 10 a.m. No reservation is required.

For more information, visit www.mountainviewcemetery.org

Andrew Chamings is a digital editor at SFGATE. Email: Andrew.Chamings@sfgate.com | Twitter: @AndrewChamings