ISYV Magazine:Oak Hill Cemetery

By Connie Cody

The two headstones for Viggo and Martha Brandt-Erichsen are created from a rock that Axel Elbek found on Alisal Ranch. Axel believed the stone had been split in half by lightning. Walter Kristensen created the copper work flowers and titling.

Nearly 125 years ago the Valley’s new cemetery held its first burial. As Dr. Gillespie, (his first name is lost to history), was laid to rest it’s entirely likely his mourners were listening to the sounds of that era, such as the daily stagecoach racing across nearby hills, horses pounding their way down the dusty road to Ballard Station.

2005 Autumn Home Page
Click Here

Ballard’s Oak Hill Cemetery where Dr. Gillespie was buried in 1883 is today’s community treasure offering a wonderful historical reflection of the Valley’s diverse culture.

Noticeably absent are the gigantic marble monuments that predominate in other Santa Barbara County cemeteries. Here true to Valley form in the “old part”of the cemetery is a fascinating mix of rugged individualism. From the stately, to the gentle and artistic, from plaques mounted in rough boulders to plaques surrounded by carved dolphins; be it a scattering of ground level stone slates or simple slabs of cement, diversity is the norm at Oak Hill.

Lush grounds support old growth trees including a number of stately redwoods planted 100 years ago by Edgar Davison the first manager of Oak Hill Cemetery.

Jim Poggione shows the 1887 state document declaration of Oak Hill as an official cemetery, awarded three years after it was established. Poggione has been manager of Oak Hill since 1999 and is the fourth manager since 1883.

Davison was an early Ballard pioneer who also served as our area’s first U.S. Forest Ranger; between bouts in the backcountry Davison was an active community leader who helped build the town’s church and school.

Ballard was the first community in the Santa Ynez Valley and its natural that the Valley’s cemetery would be located there. The town is named after William Ballard who built a halfway house out of adobe in 1860 to accommodate the stagecoach run through the Santa Ynez Valley. Called Ballard’s Station the place served as his home, offered a dining room for passengers and a Wells Fargo Express office. The adobe structures from Ballard Station still stand today, lovingly restored and cared for by the Rossi family.

In 1881 Ballard’s friend, George W. Lewis who had taken over the Station after his death, founded a town here and named it Ballard after his friend. Ballard was the first official town in the Valley, beating out Santa Ynez by one year. George W. Lewis is buried at Oak Hill.
Felix Mattei built a hotel in Los Olivos in 1886 and called it Mattei’s Central Hotel. A few years later he added on and a few name changes later the place came to be called Mattei’s Tavern. It is now known as one of the last authentic stagecoach inns in America and is considered a historical gem. Mattei’s was handed down from father to son for several generations, and there are a number of Mattei family headstones at Oak Hill. The Mattei’s beloved Chinese cook Gin Lung Gin is also buried in the family plot.

Friendly Jim Poggione, manager “and real estate guy,” at Oak Hill Cemetery knows a lot about the history of the place, those interred there and has a genuine fondness for his job. “I even get calls in the middle of the night at home—that’s just how it is—people around here know that I know and care about them,” he explains. Poggione, who also serves as a JV coach for high school football has lived in the Valley since 1985, and his father grew up here.

“The neatest part of all about this job are the elderly people I get to meet, talk to and learn the real history of the Valley from,” he says. “Some of the old guys come up here and we walk around together, look at headstones and they tell me true stories about the old days in the Valley, stories no one has ever written about.”

As an official Cemetery District, Oak Hill grants all who live within the district a right to be buried here. Those from outside the district may be buried at Oak Hill, but they pay a higher price than local residents for a lot. Current lot prices (to locals) range from $1500 to $4500, which includes endowment care.

Oak Hill Cemetery District operates with Jim Poggione as manager and an efficient board of trustees made up of long-time local residents. Most board members keep their job for decades and one generation sometimes follows another onto the board.

As to the different “parts” of Oak Hill, Poggione says “There’s the old part, where raised markers, if desired—but not mandatory—are allowed. Many family plots are here, some of the Valley’s very early settlers, neighbors in life are often neighbors in death here in this old part.”

The new part at Oak Hill, on annexed land near Baseline Road, has an unobstructed view of Figueroa Mountain and beautifully manicured lawns. Memorial-style flat head stones are mandatory here. Many long-time locals and old-timers are in the new part, as well, Poggione reports.
Asked about famous people who have a final resting place at Oak Hill, Poggione mentions a well-known senator but admits it is Edie Sedgwick’s gravesite that attracts the most attention.

“People come from all over the world to see that grave,” he says, “especially after one of those books written about her was translated into Italian and Japanese.” They leave personal mementos at her grave—portfolio photos, make-up kits and drug paraphernalia are among the items he’s found there.

Edie Sedgwick grew up in the Valley, a part of the prominent Sedgwick family, moved to New York City to pursue a career in acting and modeling that included an association with Andy Warhol and marriage to Michael Post. Often referred to as “poor, lost Edie,” she died in Santa Barbara shortly before her 30th birthday.

A headstone as modest as Edie Sedgwick’s marks the grave of Fletcher Jones, who left a foundation that now provides millions in annual support to private colleges and universities in California.

Fletcher Jones of Santa Ynez founded Computer Services Corporation when he was 28, a company that became the largest independent software services firm in the world. Jones bought 4000 acres in Happy Canyon in 1966 and set up Westerly Stud Farms to breed, raise and train thoroughbred race horses, creating one of the best racehorse operations in California.

Jones was in the process of building the largest home ever constructed in the Valley when, at the age of 41, he met his end after crashing his private plane in Happy Canyon.

“It’s amazing to see how young people were when they died, and how many children are lost in these families,” Poggione muses.

One of the most interesting headstones at Oak Hill is actually the two headstones of husband and wife Viggo and Martha Brandt-Erichsen. Created from one rock split in half, the stones are side by side but don’t touch and are linked together with entwined copper vines that encircle each stone. A highly respected sculptor in Europe who settled in Solvang in the 1950’s, Viggo Brandt-Erichsen left home when he was 14 years old and lived in a tent and small shelter cabins in the woods and wilderness area in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland for nearly 10 years. He later told his son Thor that he had built 26 such shelters during that time. He carried everything he owned in a pack, hiking in the summer months and on skis in the winter. During those years he practiced drawing and painting, and was enrolled on a scholarship in an art school in Copenhagen. Later he studied sculpture in England and in Paris. He loved nature and when he died unexpectedly in mid-life his wife thought the natural stone would be a fitting monument for his grave.

Coincidentally, the plaque to Edgar Davidson that is on the flagpole at Oak Hill was designed by Viggo Brandt-Erichsen.

He says the cemetery has an endowment care fund, making it different from some cemeteries who slide into disrepair and deterioration.