Metairie Cemetery (Lake Lawn Metairie)

The story

Before it held the dead, this land belonged to the living and the gambled. Established in 1838 as the Metairie Race Course, the oval track was once the premier sporting strip in New Orleans. When the track folded, planners converted the turf into a sprawling necropolis, keeping the original layout entirely intact. Today, Central Avenue’s oval drive traces the exact footprint of the old horse track, meaning you're literally cruising over old spectator grounds while navigating the city's highest concentration of high-end marble.

That concentration reaches its peak along Millionaires' Row, a strip where 19th-century tycoons spent fortunes outdoing each other in death. The crown jewel is the Brunswig pyramid, an Egyptian-revival monument flanked by a stone sphinx and a bronze woman bearing a libation urn. It was commissioned by a pharmaceutical millionaire named Lucien Brunswig after burying his wife and son inside. Brunswig eventually packed up and moved to Los Angeles, but when his time came decades later, he had his body shipped all the way back across the country just to get tucked into his custom pyramid.

If you know where to look, you'll also spot the reddish-granite Morales tomb. Originally built for legendary Storyville madam Josie Arlington, the vault sparked an urban legend when locals swore the stone glowed like a flaming mound after dark. The supernatural panic was short-lived: the infernal glow turned out to be nothing more than the reflection of a newly installed red traffic light bouncing off the polished granite face.