[2]: 15  On March 9, 1892, Noble was granted a permit to establish a non-sectarian cemetery[3] and plans for Cypress Lawn were made public as work had begun on a mortuary chapel and receiving vault.

[2]: 16 The prominent castle-like granite entry gate east of El Camino was designed by the B. McDougall architecture firm in San Francisco in 1892, incorporating Mission Revival elements,[5] and completed in 1893.

[6] A crematory also was completed in 1893, housed in a building designed by Albert Pissis and William P. Moore; it was damaged beyond repair during the 1957 San Francisco earthquake and subsequently demolished.

[16] Cypress Lawn Memorial Park is the final resting site for several members of the celebrated Hearst family, people from the California Gold Rush, plus other prominent citizens from the city of San Francisco and nearby surroundings.

[2]: 7 Three British Commonwealth service personnel of World War I were buried here, but only one, Lieutenant Norman Travers Simpkin (died 1919), Royal Field Artillery, has a marked grave in the cemetery.