Established in 1807 as a small burial ground for families in the north part of Salem, Greenlawn grew, over the course of several decades into a 55.8-acre modern cemetery. With each addition of land, Greenlawn introduced a new cemetery design, resulting in a patchwork of colonial, rural, garden, and lawn styles tied together by a network of roads and paths organized around two ponds. In the 1930s, a local plantsman, Harlan Kelsey, proposed an arboretum for Greenlawn, and imported hundreds of tree and shrub species to ornament the landscape, portions of which survive today. Surrounded by roadways, a dense urban neighborhood and a private golf course, the cemetery cannot expand in size and as of 2020, available gravesite space was near depletion. Greenlawn is Salem’s only active public place of interment.

To address this lack of interment space and the overall condition, the City of Salem hired Martha Lyon Landscape Architecture, LLC to prepare a master plan for Greenlawn’s landscape. Guided by an extensive public engagement process, the plan established a vision, documented the property’s history, and assessed its existing landscape conditions, including the stormwater system, ponds, and tree population. MLLA identified thirteen areas within the cemetery where new interments could be added, in the form of in-ground full-casket burials, in-ground and columbarium cremation niche burials, and scattering gardens, all designed to meld with the historic landscape.