A contemporary Ocala funeral home

Forest Lawn Funeral Home features a modern feel, soft colors, contemporary lighting and updated decor. Our building offers 3 spaces to accommodate a range of events, from intimate family-only services to large gatherings. Each room is named for a Triple Crown race: Belmont, Preakness and Derby.

Whether you are interested in a more traditional service or a personalized celebration of life, the Derby room—the largest of the 3—can be customized in most any way and accommodates up to 150 guests for memorial services or receptions.

The Belmont room comfortably seats up to 35 guests for more intimate services and receptions. This space adjoins the Preakness room, another intimate area used primarily for private viewings with no more than 4 family members at a time.

Personalized funeral services

Offering myriad funeral and cremation options, all of the services at Forest Lawn Funeral Home are designed to help you through one of the most personal and challenging stages of life. We understand that losing a loved one is an emotional and difficult experience. We are committed to providing compassionate, professional care.

We believe that unique lives deserve unique services, and our funeral home team works with you one on one to create a funeral or memorial service like no other. Sit with us and tell us about yourself or your loved one, and we'll take it from there.

Want an afternoon ice cream social? Or maybe an evening wine and cheese gathering is a better fit. Were you thinking perhaps a beach bash, a seafood buffet and flip-flops as takeaways? Or maybe a no-holds-barred motorcycle procession, rock band and leather keychain mementos is more your speed. From cupcakes to crab cakes, surfing to scrapbooking, guitars to golf balls, we take the things that mattered most to someone and string them together to create a singular, heartfelt memorial.

Honoring your traditions

At Forest Lawn Funeral Home, we are committed to serving people from all backgrounds, cultures and religions. Marion County has a large Latino population, and our experienced funeral home team includes bilingual team members and translators. We often work with bilingual priests as well. When you need us, please call us. We are here for you.

Forest Lawn Memory Gardens cemetery

Forest Lawn Memory Gardens is a serene, shaded landscape of gently rolling hills with Southern appeal. Consisting of 25 acres of developed property, the cemetery features a wide selection of burial and cremation options among live oak trees covered in softly swaying Spanish moss.

Burial and cremation options

Our mission at Forest Lawn Memory Gardens is to provide the personalized memorialization that people deserve. To that end, provide a diverse variety of options. We offer indoor crypts, private bench estates, mausoleums, cremation memorials, family estates and more.

Designed for the burial of 2-8 individuals, hedged estates are outlined with well-manicured, blooming hedges with their own irrigation. Upright monuments can be placed inside these estates. Similar to hedged estates, the Garden of Solace accommodates granite monuments or small private areas inside the garden.

Forest Lawn Memory Gardens has 4 mausoleums: 2 with cremation gardens and a picturesque pond, and 2 with lush gardens and big oak trees. Some of the newly established cremation options include a cremation garden inside a mausoleum offering up to 6 types of memorialization, such as benches and pedestals. Overlook Garden features columbaria, pedestal benches and a more updated and elaborate cremation design. Several other areas throughout the cemetery are available for private cremation estates, designed when they are chosen.

For those honoring loved ones with military service, the Veterans Garden is a loving tribute, with flags from all 5 branches of the military flying at all times.

Visit the cemetery

Photos tell a story, but we invite you to see the cemetery for yourself. If you would like a tour of the grounds or wish to discuss your burial options, please contact one of our family service counselors.

Military funerals

Forest Lawn Funeral Home and Forest Lawn Memory Gardens take special pride in serving the veterans of Marion County, working with the Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs to provide military honors and participating in the Dignity Memorial® Homeless Veterans Burial Program. Through the cooperative efforts of the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, local medical examiners, coroners, veterans advocates and other veterans organizations, we work together to provide homeless and indigent veterans who have no family to claim with proper military burials.

Community education

As staples in Ocala and neighboring communities, Forest Lawn Funeral Home and Forest Lawn Memory Gardens place a high importance on giving back through community partnerships and education. Our teams connect weekly with area businesses, veterans groups, churches, associations and clubs through our Affinity Program, providing grief counseling and informational seminars. We are a resource for local widow and widower support groups and regularly host seminars at The Villages, the largest retirement community in the United States.

Holiday services

To complement our extensive community involvement, Forest Lawn Funeral Home and Forest Lawn Memory Gardens invite the public to visit during the holiday season. Our annual luminary program is a source of reflection for nearly 200 guests every year. Following a beautiful indoor service with a harpist and local clergy, families walk the cemetery grounds, placing luminary sticks on their loved ones’ markers while listening to the holiday sounds of a live church chorus.

History

In the 1950s, Forest Lawn Memory Gardens cemetery opened. It was a venture lead by a businessman from Ocala, Florida. It was the 1st true full-service cemetery in Marion County. The businessman later sold the cemetery to the Lohman family in the 1970s.

To this day, Forest Lawn Funeral Home is the only funeral home also located on a cemetery in the greater Ocala area. Working together as sister locations, the funeral home and cemetery give you the convenience of handling all your funeral and cemetery arrangements.

Forest Lawn Funeral Home and Forest Lawn Memory Gardens not only provide the compassionate care you expect from locally operated establishments, but also the benefits you deserve by way of the Dignity Memorial® network—the largest group of funeral, cremation and cemetery service providers in North America.