State Control
The cemetery was taken over by the state. It is unclear how long the state owned the 63-acre (250,000 m2) cemetery, but Pierce Brothers bought it in 1950 and, within two years, closed the rotunda to vehicle traffic and moved the entry to the cemetery from Valhalla Drive in Burbank to Victory and Cahuenga boulevards in North Hollywood. There, they opened a two-story office and mortuary.
On Dec. 17, 1953 — the 50th anniversary of Orville and Wilbur Wrights' 12-second powered hop at Kitty Hawk — the rotunda was rededicated as the Portal of the Folded Wings. During the ceremony, the cremated remains of Walter R. Brookins were interred there. Brookins, the first aviator to take a plane to an altitude of a mile, had been the Wright brothers' first civilian student.
When sculptor Giorgi died in 1963, he was buried outside the structure, near his masterpiece. Gillette was also buried outside, near the shrine he helped found.
Read more about this topic: Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery
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—Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)
“The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)