There are four places for internment in Santa Barbara, depending on where you live, your religion, and your decision to be cremated or not. For my husband and me, it boiled down to this: The Goleta Cemetery has residency requirements, and we’re not eligible; Calvary Cemetery is solely Catholic, and we are not; and the Historic Mausoleum at Old Mission Santa Barbara has added a columbarium with niche spaces for cremated remains — and although it’s lovely and open to all faiths, it just didn’t feel right, given my Jewish roots.
So, we made an appointment with Laura Ringquist at the Santa Barbara Cemetery Association. Chatty and knowledgeable, Ringquist was similar to a real estate agent showing off properties as she drove us past potential plots while outlining their merits and costs. When I asked about upright granite tombstones, she informed us that many modern cemeteries only allow for flat grass markers so as to minimize maintenance — understandable from a pragmatic point of view, but somehow antithetical to our vision of a graveyard.
Santa Barbara Cemetery rates range from $6,000 for an urn placement in a niche to $130,000 for companion sites in the Sunset Section. Those prices do not include internment fees, vaults and liners, or mandatory regulatory fees. The memorializing stone and engraving are an additional ticket item.