Conejo Mountain memorial park opens funeral home
By Daniel Wolowicz camarillo@theacorn.com

DANIEL WOLOWICZ/Acorn NewspaperNEW ADDITION- The two-story facility at Conejo Mountain Funeral Home and Memorial Park includes a 322-seat chapel.

Cheryl Wiley's reaction when she first stepped into Conejo Mountain Funeral Home and Memorial Park's newly completed 15,000-square-foot facility wasn't typical for someone walking into a funeral home.

"It's very relaxing when I walk in here," said Wiley, a former Camarillo native, during a recent tour of the $4 million building that opened its doors earlier this month.

But that's the feeling the Conejo Mountain's staff wants to illicit from clients who enter the funeral home's light and airy foyer with vaulted ceilings and ceramic tiled floors.

"We want to take away that uncomfortable feeling people have when they think of a funeral home," said sales manager Wendy Haden. "We want families to be comfortable to come and use our facilities and enjoy them. We want to be part of the community."

Wiley, 57, toured the new building earlier this week with her husband, Ken, 62, and her mother, Joan Bonde.

The new building is the most recent addition to the 119-acre property that was sold to the cemetery in 1965 by local rancher Mary Howard Smith.

"We've been watching this in the process," Wiley said of the funeral home that broke ground in March 2006. "We're really happy with it."

Although Wiley raised her family in Northern California, the Adolfo Camarillo High School graduate said she and her husband have already made funeral arrangements at Conejo Mountain. She wants to be near her parents, Wiley said.

Those plans were made when Wiley's father, Walter, died in 2003- years before the new building was completed. Both Wiley and Bonde said they are happy with the funeral home's softly colored interior design accented with traditional, Missionstyle furniture.

"It's quiet, not overwhelming," Bonde said.

Haden said she and the rest of the funeral home's 20-person staff are excited about their move into the two-story funeral home and out of their makeshift offices shoehorned into a pair of portable bungalows neighboring the cemetery's original chapel.

"The building has given us the opportunity to service our families so much better than what we've been able to in the past," Haden said. "We've wanted to; we just haven't had the facility to do so."

The new building's first floor includes a 322seat chapel complete with flat-screen plasma television for pictorial slide shows, a community room for receptions and three living roomsized areas for funeral arrangements and smaller services.

The first floor also features a selection room for customers to choose caskets, urns and headstones. The funeral home includes a crematorium.

Administrative offices occupy the funeral home's second floor.

General manager Pamela Beardsley said Conejo Mountain's ability to provide a wide range of services will help the 42-year-old funeral home better compete with others in Ventura County.

GRD Construction and architectural firm Lauderbach and Associates- both of Ventura- handled the construction and design of the building.

Conejo Mountain officials said the construction of the building wasn't slowed by the cemetery's purchase by Carriage Services Inc. earlier this year. Carriage Services bought the property from Alderwoods Group for an undisclosed amount, according to company reports. Both companies are headquartered in Houston.

Beardsley said that although Conejo Mountain is now owned by Carriage Services- one of the largest funeral home companies in the United States- the Camarillo funeral home is still run as if it were a small local business.

"They don't feel they own us," Beardsley said. "We feel we own ourselves."

For more information about Conejo Mountain Funeral Home and Memorial Park, 2052 Howard Road, call (805) 482-1959 or visit www.conejomountainmemorial park.com.