Frank Sinatra Grave: Desert Memorial Park Memorial Design

Where is Frank Sinatra buried?

Frank Sinatra is buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California. The cemetery is at 31705 Da Vall Drive in the Coachella Valley, near Palm Springs. Desert Memorial Park is open to the public. Sinatra’s grave is the most visited stone there. Several other Sinatra family members are buried in nearby plots.

Memorial Design Analysis

Frank Sinatra’s memorial is a flat polished grey granite marker. It is set flush with the ground. Desert Memorial Park requires this Mid-Century Modern style for every grave in the section. The marker is medium sized. There is no portrait. There is no sculpture. There is no long story of his life. The design fits both the cemetery rules and the family’s wish for a quiet stone.

The main text on the stone is the epitaph: “The best is yet to come.” The phrase is the title of a song Sinatra recorded with Count Basie in 1964 for the album It Might as Well Be Swing. Sinatra loved the song and chose the phrase for his own grave while he was still alive. That choice turns the inscription into a piece of his music catalogue. Visitors who know the song carry that memory with them when they stand at the stone.

Below the epitaph the stone shows his full name and life dates in standard sans serif letters. The layout is plain. The name is centred, the dates are beneath, and the epitaph sits above. The song title gets the top spot on the stone.

The polished grey granite holds up well in the Coachella Valley sun. Every marker at Desert Memorial Park uses the same flat format. From a distance Sinatra’s grave looks like the stones around it. Most visitors find the grave by asking at the cemetery office.

Why Frank Sinatra’s memorial is studied

Frank Sinatra’s grave is the most cited example of a song title epitaph. That is when a memorial inscription comes straight from one of the person’s own recordings. The same pattern shows up at Dean Martin’s grave at Westwood Village (“Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime”) and at Mel Blanc’s grave at Hollywood Forever (“That’s all, folks!”). Sinatra’s epitaph is the most quoted of these. The hopeful tone of the song works in a deeply moving way at the side of a grave.