ROGERS — Johnelle Hunt never imagined she’d design a cemetery, but since December 2006 - when her husband, J.B. Hunt, unexpectedly died - that’s exactly what she has done.
Pinnacle Memorial Gardens officially will open during the first quarter of2012. The 30-acre site will have sidewalks and streets wide enough for cars to double-park. In addition, other touches, such as the choice of natural stone for the chapel, are intended to induce a feeling of serenity.
If things go according to plan, the body of Johnnie Bryan Hunt will be moved this week to its final resting place at Pinnacle Memorial Gardens as part of a private family ceremony. His name is a common sight on the sides of thousands of J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. trucks that travel the nation’s highways.
“I like the fact that the cemetery will have sidewalks,” Johnelle Hunt said during a recent interview in a boardroom on the top floor of the J.B. Hunt Tower in Rogers, one of her husband’s buildings and the epicenter for most of her business activity. “I grew up being taught that you don’t step on graves.”
Johnelle Hunt, 79, is a Northwest Arkansas business leader and philanthropist, and was recently listed by Forbes magazine as the 312th-richest person in the U.S. with an estate valued at $1.4 billion. In 1961, her husband founded the forerunner of the Lowell-based trucking firm. The company has become one of the nation’s largest, publicly held transportation businesses.
J.B. Hunt died at age 79, nearly a week after slipping on ice in a parking lot near his home on Dec. 2, 2006. Next Sunday, the Hunt family will host a public dedication at the for-profit cemetery. The 1:30 p.m. function will also serve as the facility’s introduction to the community since the property is expected to also be used for weddings and receptions.
The grounds were designed by the late landscape architect William G. Hynek of Coto De Caza, Calif. He is affiliated with the nation’s largest public cemetery, Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuaries in Whittier, Calif.
Brian Goshert, Hynek’s son-in-law and a development project manager at Rose Hills, said Hynek’s Arkansas cemetery was designed with a parklike atmosphere in mind.
The cemetery, at Mount Hebron and Wallis Road-Champions Drive in southwest Rogers, has electric gates at the main entrances. About half of the fenced-in property already has been landscaped.
Local architect Maurice Jennings, along with his son, Walter Jennings, designed the cemetery chapel. The elder Jennings worked with the late E. Fay Jones of Fayetteville, one of the nation’s most renowned architects, until Jones retired in 1998.
“The cemetery was not anything we ever talked to him about,” Walter Jennings said of J.B. Hunt, who was a distant cousin.
Stone arches and a rose window of clear glass and steel accentuate the 135-seat chapel. Stone from Prairie Grove and steel manufactured in Tontitown help form the structure, while wood and glass also are prominent.
“We met with the whole immediate family and talked about things we remembered,” Walter Jennings said, recalling the Hunt family reunions and other events. The Jenningses are related to the Hunts through Maurice Jennings’ mother. “The wood and stone spoke to the family.”
The chapel isn’t complete and will be dedicated next year.
Maurice Jennings specializes in construction of chapels and has designed as many as16 of them in conjunction with other architects. His work includes the Skyrose Chapel in Whittier and the Cooper Chapel in Bella Vista.
The Hunt chapel will be the second that the fatherand-son team has worked on together.
Representatives for the Hunt family declined to provide the total cost of Pinnacle Memorial Gardens.
According to the Arkansas Cemetery Board, construction of a perpetual-care cemetery like Pinnacle Memorial Gardens is rare in the state. Unlike other cemeteries, perpetual-care cemeteries must comply with state rules such as placing at least 20 percent of the gross sales price for burial plots into a fund usedfor the property’s upkeep.
“Over the last five years there have been two new [perpetual-care] cemeteries” that received permits, said Karyn Tierney, a staff attorney with the Arkansas Securities Department, which oversees the care of the state’s 98 such permitted cemeteries.
There are 1,111 registered cemeteries in the state: historic, family and otherwise. However, that total does not include those that have been abandoned, and the exact number of cemeteries in the state is unknown, according to data from the Arkansas Department of Health.
Tierney said the perpetual-care model is often preferred by people because of the assurance that the plots will be taken care of over the long term.
Pinnacle Memorial Gardens was incorporated in May 2007. In March 2008, the state cemetery board issued a cemetery permit for it.
While J.B. Hunt previously had mentioned the need for a new cemetery, Johnelle Hunt, tears in her eyes, said: “We’d not made any plans.”
She described her final years with Hunt as “starting some new venture.” Hunt had business interests in rock quarries, chartered jet services and horse tracks, to name a few.
In addition to foundingwhat would become one of the country’s largest transportation companies, J.B. Hunt left an indelible mark on Northwest Arkansas through numerous real estate and construction projects.
“Of all the things that went through my mind about who he was, the one thing that stood out was the fact that he was always moving forward to the next new project,” Johnelle Hunt said. The conference room where she sat overlooks the Pinnacle Hills Promenade, a 980,000-squarefoot office and retail complex. “This [Pinnacle] project was his last big deal,” she said, referring to the promenade and the nearby Shoppes at Pinnacle Hills, a smaller retail center. J.B. Hunt has been buried in a cemetery run by the city of Rogers. About 4,000 people have been laid to rest there, dating back to the 1950s. A maximum interment figure for the 18-acresite wasn’t available.
In comparison, Pinnacle Memorial Gardens initially will offer 14,666 resting places in the form of traditional plots, ash burial places, niche wall spaces for ashes and mausoleum vaults. Pricing for such burials has not been determined.
“The cemetery is for everyone,” Johnelle Hunt said, and “anyone who wants to be buried here is welcome.”
Business, Pages 75 on 11/06/2011