Q&A with Co-Founder Lauren Robie: “How did you end up starting a cemetery?” and the Path to Hope
- Lauren Robie
- Sep 10
- 6 min read
Updated: Sep 17
When people hear that I co-founded a natural burial cemetery, the first reaction is often curiosity – how does someone end up starting a cemetery? It’s not the kind of career path most people imagine. Over the years, I’ve been asked many common questions about my journey, my background, and what led me to create Hope Eternal Gardens.
So I thought I’d share some of those frequently asked questions, and the touchpoints of my life that make it clear why this path – though unusual at first glance – is actually the natural culmination of everything I’ve studied, practiced, and loved. And if you have a question I don’t cover here, I’d love to hear from you – you can write to me anytime at lauren@hopeeternalgardens.com.
Q: How did Hope Eternal Gardens start?
Hope began with something deeply personal: my mother-in-law’s last wish for a natural burial and finding that there were very limited options within Florida. Honoring her request revealed the need for a place like Hope in our community – one that restores the land, provides dignity in burial, and gives families meaningful ways to connect.
But that’s Chris’s story to tell in full. In his own Q&A, he’ll share how her wish shaped his vision as a landscape architect and how it guided us both toward founding Hope Eternal Gardens.
Q: Your path to becoming a cemetery co-founder isn’t what most people would expect. What led you here?
My path may look winding, but each step taught me something about how design, memory, and ritual shape the human experience – lessons that eventually converged at Hope. I started in art and design, moved through public parks, studied abroad, and pursued landscape architecture. Looking back, it all connects: every touchpoint prepared me for Hope in ways I couldn’t see at the time, but now feels inevitable.
Q: Where did your love of landscapes begin?
My love of landscapes began in Miami, where I spent summers at nature camp and weekends at Greynolds Park. Once a limestone quarry, it had been transformed into a public park in the 1930s, and it showed me how land could be healed, transformed, and shared.
I didn’t know it then, but years later I would return to work in the Planning department for the Miami-Dade County Parks Department – and it’s also where I met Chris, my husband, collaborator, and now co-founder of Hope.
Q: You studied both art and design. How has that shaped Hope?
Art has always been a throughline for me, showing how creativity supports emotional well-being – helping us process grief, celebrate joy, and express the full range of human experience. That belief continues to shape Hope’s long-term vision.
At Design and Architecture Senior High (DASH), I studied fine art, industrial design, and art history. It was a place that trained future designers and artists, and it grounded me in creative practice from an early age. Later, I was honored as a 2010 YoungArts Winner in Fine Arts, a prestigious national program that introduced me to interdisciplinary collaboration and the richness of other art forms. I was also selected to participate in HBO’s Masterclass with James Rosenquist, one of the leading Pop artists of the 20th century, who showed us how fine art can shift culture. And through the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) summer painting program in Tuscany, I encountered European art and architecture firsthand – an experience that expanded my sense of how history and place shape identity.
That’s why art is part of Hope’s long-term vision. Inspired by historic cemeteries that served as America’s first public art spaces – from Mount Auburn’s artist residencies to Green-Wood and Oakland’s community programs – we see a future where Hope also hosts land art, exhibitions, and creative programming that connect people more deeply to both memory and nature.
Q: What role did your academic studies play?
Academics gave me the theory and tools to see cemeteries not just as burial grounds, but as cultural landscapes that shape how we experience life, memory, and meaning.
At the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS) in Copenhagen, I studied with Camilla Rhyl, an internationally recognized voice in universal design, who taught me the importance of making spaces inclusive and dignified for all. With Rasmus Fisk of arki_lab, I learned how communities themselves could co-create civic spaces. During that time, I also visited Woodland Cemetery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Stockholm, where landscape, ritual, and movement were integrated in ways that profoundly shaped my imagination.
Back at the University of Pennsylvania, I earned my degree in Visual Studies and a minor in Art History summa cum laude. My senior thesis, Mind the Motion: Drawing in Transit to Encourage Rider Mindfulness, explored how small rituals and sensory awareness can change the way we experience daily spaces. It won the Charles Willson Peale Prize – but more importantly, it gave me tools I still use at Hope when creating simple but meaningful experiences like planting intentions, arranging wildflowers, or reading a poem.
Later, at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, I pursued graduate studies in Landscape Architecture. One of my first studio visits was to Mount Auburn Cemetery, the first rural cemetery in the United States and a National Historic Landmark. There, I began to see cemeteries not only as places of rest, but as cultural landscapes of beauty, reflection, and community. Harvard was formative, but ultimately I chose to step away to gain hands-on experience alongside Chris. That decision grounded our work in practice and collaboration – and set the stage for Hope.
Mount Auburn Cemetery. Photos by Lauren Robie.
Q: How did your professional experiences prepare you?
Every role I’ve held showed me how creativity, education, and public space can restore land and enrich lives – the same goals at the heart of Hope.
At the Association for Public Art, the nation’s oldest public art organization, I assisted with Museum Without Walls™: AUDIO, a program that used smartphones to share stories of public artworks and make them accessible to everyone. At the Interlochen Center for the Arts Summer Camp, a renowned arts education institution, I taught painting and supported the Visual Arts department, seeing firsthand how arts education can uplift and inspire the next generation. As a Planning & Design Excellence Fellow with Miami-Dade County, I contributed to The Underline, transforming land beneath a transit corridor into a vibrant public park. And in 2016, Chris and I co-founded TOPO_GRAPHIC, a design practice that keeps us rooted in professional landscape architecture while exploring creative, community-driven projects.
Q: What do you hope Hope Eternal Gardens will give to the community?
Hope’s gift to the community is a model of burial that gives back – a place that honors the past, heals the present, and inspires the future. It’s more than a cemetery: it’s a park for the future, a sanctuary for families, and a living landscape that restores the land and uplifts the community.
Q: And for you personally, what does Hope mean?
For me, Hope is the culmination of everything I’ve studied, practiced, and loved. It is not only my life’s work – it is a new way for our culture to honor life and legacy, through nature, memory, and design.
Looking back, it amazes me how each step – from childhood summers in parks, to encounters with historic cemeteries, to studies in art and design – led to this moment. What once seemed like a winding path now feels like it was always pointing toward Hope. My greatest joy is seeing how that journey now creates space for others: a place where memory, nature, and community come together, and where legacies continue to grow.
If you have questions I didn’t cover here, I’d love to hear them. You can reach me directly at lauren@hopeeternalgardens.com.
