Federal Way's Gethsemane Cemetery is exemplary of a landscape that reflects both Euro-American Catholic culture and Hispanic Catholic iconography. The Cemetery, with its grass-green, rolling hill and specimen tree landscape, is reminiscent of the Garden of Eden, a lush, green, and safe place that Euro-American Catholic culture strives to reinvent. Hispanic Catholicism is marked with its own iconography, such as the account of Mary appearing to the Aztecan, Juan Diego, atop Tepayac Hill in Guadalupe, Mexico in 1531. Atop the hill, she convinces Juan of her holiness and persuades him to build a temple in her honor. The narrative of Mary, known as Our Lady of Guadalupe, is filled with crucial iconography that translates easily into landscape design; where objects such as snakes, roses, and hilltops have been integrated into the Cemetery¡¯s landscape design in the form of pathways, plantings and landforms.

J.A. Brennan completed schematic design, contract documentation, bid support, and construction observation for this portion of the Cemetery anchored by the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe.