You too can have your remains lie in rest at the famed San Francisco Columbarium, as someone is now selling one of the niches there on Facebook Marketplace for a cool $38,000.
It is well-known that San Francisco no longer has cemeteries within the city limits. But you can still have your ashes remain in San Francisco at a couple places: there’s a columbarium inside Grace Cathedral, and the far more famed San Francisco Columbarium & Funeral Home, which dates back to 1898. The neoclassical domed structure in the Inner Richmond is a unique SF attraction (and also still serves as a polling place on Election Day).
And the Chronicle brings us the news today that someone is selling a slot (technically called a “niche”) at the SF Columbarium on Facebook Marketplace. The current listing price is $38,000, which is not bad for a facility at which these niches can sell for more than $100,000. And yes, niches can be bought and sold, not unlike real estate, but it’s pretty rare that a niche at this storied facility comes available.
“Your family's remains can be interred in a double private niche in San Francisco's exclusive Columbarium,” the ad says. “This is the only legal way to store remains in San Francisco. After a divorce settlement, we are selling our family's niche.”
The exact location of the niche is not given (“Please contact me for the exact location,” the ad says), though it is a coveted first floor slot. The seller is reportedly a man who went through a divorce, who had purchased the niche so his ex-wife and he could be interred together in San Francisco proper.
You can check out the general layout of the accommodations anytime, as the facility is open to the public 9 am-5 pm seven days a week, except holidays.
The available niche is described as 13.5" hight, 29" wide, and 13” deep.
The SF Columbarium is the final resting place for nearly 80,000 people, and is home to the ashes of the “San Francisco twins” Marian and Vivian Brown, as well as longtime political power broker Rose Pak, and Carlos Santana’s father José Santana. Harvey Milk has a niche there too (seen above), though it is populated with personal possessions and memorabilia, as Milk’s ashes were spread elsewhere.
For a quick introduction to the SF Columbarium, check out the 2014 short film The Columbarium, featuring the wisdom of the facility’s longtime caretaker Emmitt Watson.
Image: Ishi M. via Yelp
