Courtney Love has a dilemma.
Where is she going to bury the ashes of her late husband, rock star Kurt Cobain of Nirvana?Of the two Seattle cemeteries she has approached, one has turned her down, citing security concerns, and the other wants at least $100,000 a year to cover the costs of full-time security to protect the cemetery and grave site - in addition to a $75,000 tombstone.
"I don't have that kind of money, and Kurt didn't have that kind of money," Love said.
Since Cobain's April 1994 suicide at the couple's Seattle home on Lake Washington Boulevard, fans from around the world have streamed to neighboring Viretta Park to pay homage to the late singer, songwriter and guitarist who helped change the course of rock 'n' roll in the early '90s.
Visitors bring flowers and candles and gaze at the garage where Cobain killed himself.
"Some of them are fine, decent people that have no place to go," Love said. Others are more aggressive, carving messages into the park bench or cutting through the fence that separates the park from the house.
Love, who is purchasing another home in New Orleans, was forced to hire round-the-clock security.
"You should see the bench in the park next to my house. It looks like Jim Morrison's grave," Love said, referring to the late singer for the '60s rock group The Doors.
"I can't have this going on. I can't be spending this much on guards every month. If I sell the house, the same thing's going to happen to anyone who moves in here."
Last winter, Love approached Lake View Cemetery, the final resting place for members of many of Seattle's pioneer families as well as movie stars Bruce Lee and his son, Brandon Lee.
But Lake View turned her down, she said.
Dean Mathiesen, Love's personal assistant, said, "Their reason was that they already had their hands full with Bruce Lee and Brandon being buried there, and they couldn't take on another celebrity."
In fact, Love preferred Calvary Catholic Cemetery because of its spectacular setting north of the University of Washington and its views of the city. Earlier this year she arranged to purchase a grave site there.
"We had chosen a really nice tombstone, a really nice setup in a new area that (Calvary) had just opened up, and we would be at the top," Mathiesen said. "They were going to put a garden in around it. They helped us create this elaborate, beautiful monument. But when it came down to it, the monument was like $50,000 to $75,000. Courtney didn't want to do it."
Love had envisioned a simpler tombstone costing about $20,000.
But in early June, she said, Associated Catholic Cemeteries, representing Calvary, faxed her a sketch of its proposal for a lavish memorial featuring a 4-foot-high angel with a 6-foot wingspan.
"It was so tacky," Love said. "It had Kurt's face on it."
Last week, attorney Patrick Crowley, representing the cemetery, sent her a letter threatening to cancel the original purchase agreement if Love did not agree to pay at least $100,000 a year to cover the estimated costs of security, maintenance and repair for the memorial.
John McCoy, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle, said the cemetery's policy was to accept anyone who wanted to be buried there but that accepting Cobain's ashes would "present the cemetery with some security and crowd-control problems."
In his letter to Love, Crowley said she had misrepresented her reason for wishing to bury Cobain's ashes at Calvary. "It has recently come to our attention that the real reason for making the purchase was that other cemeteries had refused to sell burial space," Crowley said in the letter.
In a profile in the June issue of Vanity Fair Love revealed her plan to bury Cobain's ashes at Calvary. "I was thinking at one point: Because he loved (Seattle) so much, would Kurt want to go to New Orleans? When people go and make their pilgrimage, would they like to go to New Orleans? Mmmmm . . . no. I guess Seattle will stay the mecca for drugs and Kurt Cobain."