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At least once a week, local historian Brandon Zimmerman unlocks the gate to an unruly and sprawling 27-acre urban forest in North Philly as a volunteer caretaker.

While it looks like a wildly overgrown forest with massive tree canopies, acres of invasive vines, flowering plants and poison ivy – there’s about 33,000 people buried there because it’s a cemetery founded in 1856.

“This has, at least in recent memory, has been functioning more as a green space than it has a cemetery,” said Zimmerman, a volunteer with the Friends of Mount Vernon Cemetery who sees foxes, deer, birds and more on the property.

Volunteers are developing historic cemetery tours for visitors and plans to host a community event in the fall.

But something spooked the group in recent weeks – an online real estate listing to sell Mount Vernon Cemetery for at least $1 million.

Here’s some background on that: The longtime owner of the cemetery was Joseph Murphy, a Washington D.C.-based attorney, but he lost control over it after preservationists took him to court in 2020 using a Pennsylvania law known as Act 135, which enables conservators to save abandoned and blighted properties. Murphy lost control of the property in 2021.

The Philadelphia Community Development Coalition is the conservator of the cemetery and has spent more than $200,000 on restoration and stabilization of the historic gatehouse since then. It’s ultimately up to a judge to decide who the next owner might be. And there’s a community-led group interested in taking over, but they haven’t raised enough money for minimal operational costs, even if the property was transferred over for a nominal fee and city back taxes forgiven.

Zimmerman, the volunteer, said he’s not concerned about it being sold to another for-profit owner because the cemetery doesn’t have the modern infrastructure to support new plots considering a gravesite hasn’t been sold since 1968.

“Even if [the court] sold this place for a dollar, you’d never make your money back,” he said.

Most of the volunteers spend their time wrangling the landscape by carefully removing vines from crumbling tombstones and monuments, record keeping and connecting families with their ancestors buried there.

While there’s some famous gravestones in the cemetery – like the ancestors of celebrity Drew Barrymore – the plots are so old that most families are often looking for their grandparents’ or even great grandparents’ final resting place.

Agents representing Drew Barrymore did not respond to a request for comment for this news story.

Standing in front of a mausoleum with stained glass windows that feature the sword of a Shriner, a Masonic group, Zimmerman pointed to vines on the marble walls.

“You don’t just go over, grab the vines and just rip them off because you could rip down the mausoleum. So we cut [the vines] at the base. Let them die off,” he said.

Zimmerman is hoping that the property isn’t sold to the highest bidder at all, but instead transferred from the conservator to a new nonprofit cemetery organization Mount Vernon Cemetery Conservation Company, which has a board of directors prepared to take over.

The only thing that’s missing is enough cash for the nonprofit to operate for a runway of three years, said board member Thaddeus Squire.

“We don’t have the assets to [run] a cemetery as we sit here. So we have been trying to raise money for quite some time now and it’s been very hard and very frustrating,” Squire said.

The nonprofit is trying to raise $300,000 for three years of operation – it’s got about $50,000 pledged towards the effort from supporters.

“It’s a very unorthodox [philanthropic] ask. Most funders have prohibition against any grant related to real estate or things that the grant seeker doesn’t have any control over,” he said. “In this case, we have no choice. That is just the way the situation is.”

There is about $1 million in restricted money that’s tied to the cemetery plots sold before 1968 but that’s meant to care for the graves into perpetuity and would not be given to the owner for unrestricted use.

In the 1970s, Laurel Hill Cemetery, which sits across the street from Mount Vernon was in a similar state of abandonment. But it was the volunteer friends group that spearheaded its revival into a national landmark with manicured grounds, an arboretum and regular events.

While Laurel Hill would be an obvious potential bidder on Mount Vernon Cemetery, it’s not interested in that but has been a good neighbor in offering expertise and support.

“Laurel Hill is not considering purchasing them. But like everyone else, we believe that a rising tide lifts all boats and we want to see proper restoration and ongoing stewardship of the property,” said Nancy Goldenberg, CEO of Laurel Hill Cemetery.

The Philadelphia Community Development Coalition hopes to calm any fears about the sale.

“This does not mean that the cemetery will definitely be sold on the open market but the possibility of that needs to be explored as part of our duty to the estate,” according to a statement to WHYY News.

While the proposed sale listing went up in recent weeks, there’s no rush to move the case forward, said Paul Toner, attorney for the court-approved conservator Philadelphia Community Development Coalition.

“PCDC is not upset that it’s taken a long time and they’re certainly not displeased that they’ve had a lot of cost to maintain and preserve [the cemetery],” Toner said. “It’s committed to the preservation of our cultural assets.”

It’s already been four years since the court case began and the conservator is willing to wait years for a suitable buyer to take over and run the cemetery again. And there’s restrictions on what the land can be used for as decided by the court.

“Everyone can rest assured that an Amazon fulfillment center won’t be coming to Mount Vernon Cemetery,” Toner said. “Everyone’s committed to respecting the gravesites.”

That commitment doesn’t necessarily mean that Mount Vernon Cemetery will ever be styled in a manicured way with turf grass.

That’s because so much wildlife has flourished on the property and volunteers don’t want to destroy more habitat within city limits. Instead, there are plans to remove invasive species, encourage native plants and balance desires of the living with disturbing the dead.

Near the front gate of the cemetery, the volunteers planted flowers in a cradle style grave of an old caretaker. The group hopes that it’s a symbol of their commitment to the souls buried in the cemetery.

“It’s kind of cool that our special grave here is a former caretaker,” Zimmerman said.