New owners of Hearthside Pet Cemetery in McKean are giving the property a facelift

Hearthside Pet Cemetery ― the final resting place for nearly 3,800 animals ― has new owners.

Hearthside Pet Cemetery is a 2-acre square located in a hollow at 6330 Rick Road in McKean Township. It was opened in 1958 by Ovia Arthur "Art" Paavola, a veterinarian who founded the Erie Animal Hospital. It stayed in the Paavola family for three generations.

After only a few weeks on the market, the property was purchased in November by the Farrar family, of Fairview Township. Jennifer Farrar, executive director of Asbury Woods, and her 15-year-old son, James Farrar, co-own the cemetery together.

The mother-son duo saw this as business opportunity for their family and hope to provide the same type of services they received at Hearthside several years ago.

Related:Erie County pet cemetery is the final resting place for Bonzo and plenty of family pets

"At the end of the day, this is really a people business," Jennifer Farrar said. "We're helping people through a moment in their life that’s really sad and hard. I think our personal experience with it is something that will help, especially losing a pet very suddenly at such a young age."

Why the Farrars purchased the pet cemetery

In 2018, the Farrars adopted an English cream golden retriever they named Jack.

When Jack was 7 months old, he ate what is commonly known as the death cap mushroom, according to Jack's story on the Hearthside website. Ingesting even a single mushroom can be fatal to an adult. It didn't take long for the mushroom's lethal toxins to take Jack's life.

When deciding what to do with the remains, Jennifer Farrar initially thought about cremation, but then remembered her mother, Debbie Burick, had buried her dog at Hearthside in 1975. Jennifer Farrar connected with Tom Paavola, the son of the founder, to discuss burying Jack at Hearthside, too.

"We worked with someone who offered a really kind service and it was very comforting," she said. "It conveyed trust as we’re handing over our dear puppy who just passed away unexpectedly."

The experience the Farrars had with Paavola inspired them to want to provide that same empathy and kindness to others who lose their pets.

"He cared about this property and keeping it up and providing this service for people," Jennifer Farrar said. "We knew how that felt and we hope we can recreate that same kind of feeling of trust and comfort."

Putting in the work on their fixer-upper

Owning a pet cemetery gives James Farrar, a sophomore at Fairview High School, a chance to grow his landscaping expertise.

"I’ve been doing outdoor stuff for as long as I can remember," he said. "My grandpa has a camp and I take care of the grounds there, at my dad’s house, and just always had an interest of being outside and doing that type of stuff."

James Farrar will take the lead on grounds maintenance. He said cleaning up the headstones and markers and trimming hedges and trees will be among the first projects.

Related: N.Y. pet cemetery deemed historic

Following some general landscaping upkeep, the Farrars envision they'll renovate the gazebo, upgrade signage and possibly add park benches.

"We want people to feel good about coming and spending their time here, sort of a comforting, well-taken-care-of-spot so people don’t feel like their pets have been forgotten and not given any attention," Jennifer Farrar said.

"I’m just really looking forward to getting it cleaned up, so when you drive by, people go 'It’s a really nice place,'" James said. "We’re proud we own it and hope to keep it nice and take care of it for others in the community."

Carrying on a tradition

Since the sale, the Farrars have been working on marketing, meeting with vendors and learning as much about the pet cemetery industry as possible in order to start offering services this month.

Services include individual lawn burials, personalized markers, pickup services from home or a veterinary office, and burials and markers for cremated pet remains. They plan to offer a new service of sharing pet obituaries online, according to their website.

"We’ll also potentially have the option to store a couple pets during the winter, but not infinite numbers of them," Jennifer Farrar said. "Especially for the families who have six, seven, eight pets here already."

When asked about how common it is for people to bury their pets in a cemetery, Jennifer Farrar said it's "somewhat of a growing trend."

In other places:Milwaukee area pet cemeteries honor animal companions with final resting places, grieving services

"People are just seeing pets as members of their family and they’re investing resources into their pets' comfort and care during their lifetime," she said.

Although Hearthside has become the final resting place for a kangaroo and a horse, the Farrars plan to stick to burying smaller animals, such as dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, hamsters and turtles. Jennifer Farrar said they've already begun to receive calls about their services.

"This isn’t going to happen overnight," she said. "There’s a lot of work here to do, so we’ll keep at it and hopefully people will see some progress over the next couple of months as we go."

Hearthside Pet Cemetery can be reached through its Facebook page, at hearthsidepetcemetery.com, call or text Jennifer Farrar at 814-873-0853 or email hearthsidepet@gmail.com.

Baylee DeMuth can be reached at 814-450-3425 or bdemuth@timesnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @BayleeDeMuth.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Hearthside Pet Cemetery in McKean Township has new owners, services