Underwater Undertaking
Patricia Huang
05.22.06

Gary Levine is spending $10 million to build a cemetery under the sea.
Does he need to decompress?

In life, radio disc jockey Roby Yonge was pretty weird. Best known for
propagating on-air the "Paul is dead" rumor about Beatles member Paul
McCartney in 1969, he believed in life on other planets and was obsessed
with discovering the mythical lost city of Atlantis. Now, nine years
after his death, Yonge's family has found the storied city for him--in
name, at least--and plans to make it his final resting place. Under
construction 3 miles off the coast of Key Biscayne, Fla., Atlantis
Memorial Reef is an underwater graveyard and scuba attraction that will
open in July, and eventually hold the remains of up to 80,000 people
whose families are willing to pay between $900 (sharing space with
others in a base) and $250,000 (for a custom 18-foot sculpture in
bronze, limestone or concrete). You can get a 20-square-foot family
mausoleum, with four columns and two lintels, for only $50,000.

This Disneyland for the dead is the curious fixation of Gary Levine, 58,
who used to build docks and seawalls but is a bit new to the burial
business. Once it's complete, the site will span 15 acres of ocean floor
and consist of five concentric circles, based loosely on an account of
Atlantis in Plato's dialogue Timaeus. Levine has planned 40 themed
areas, including love, education, the military and the zodiac, all
overseen by a bronze display of winged lions and three dolphins pulling
a chariot of the Greek sea god, Poseidon. Tacky? Even Levine has limits.
"We're not making a bust of someone's wife or their German shepherd," he
insists. "If someone wanted diamond eyeballs we wouldn't do that,
either."

Who would back such a kooky venture? Levine, who owns 47% of his
AfterLife Services, isn't naming names but says a dozen investors
coughed up $350,000 in toto toward the $10 million construction cost. A
colleague arranged a $200,000 bank loan, and Levine scraped together
another $250,000 between his own savings and those of friends. The
startup capital was enough for him to get through the arduous permit
process and launch a small marketing effort.

Like many a caprice, this one came about during a sunset stroll on the
beach. Levine told a friend, "When I'm gone I want to be in the water
with the fish." That got him researching reef burial sites. You can find
at least one outfit working offshore, with sites from New Jersey to
Texas (California and Oregon have no provisions for man-made reefs),
that mixes cremated remains with cement for burial among artificial
reefs made of junked parts of steel bridges, sunken barges and leftover
construction debris. Levine wanted more, so he recruited an old sculptor
friend, Kim Brandell, who designed the steel globe outside Trump
International Hotel in Manhattan's Columbus Circle. The two sketched out
something similar to the set of James Cameron's The Abyss, the 1989
underwater sci-fi thriller.

But where to locate? Levine needed a wide, level and coral-less stretch
of ocean floor deep enough for tall sculptures but sufficiently shallow
to allow sunlight, plants and recreational divers.The site also had to
meet a Coast Guard requirement of 25 feet of clearance from the tops of
structures to the water surface. An ideal spot in Miami-Dade County
turned up. Levine found an eager advocate in Brian Flynn, a manager in
charge of reef projects for the county, who was impressed by the
detailed renderings, cost breakdowns and time lines. Atlantis got an
okay in January 2005. Levine plunked down $84,000 to engage a marine
engineering firm.

Not so fast. Within a month or so the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began
questioning the unusual proposal. A 30-day public notice period was set,
and everyone piled on--the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service, Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission,
Department of Environmental Protection. "The bureaucracy was just
running wild and the questions just kept coming," says Levine. "There
were times when discussions got a little heated," recalls Audra
Livergood, a fishery biologist with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric
Administration. "I couldn't believe there could be a project like that;
I'm still skeptical about its habitat value." Would Atlantis interfere
with any natural fish habitat? The point was debated for months until
Levine offered ocular proof there'd be no problem--four hours of
underwater video, coordinates logged along the way via GPS. "What did we
see that whole time? Not one single fish," Levine says.

But without the requisite permits Levine couldn't raise any more money
or solicit customers. That didn't stop him completely. He sank $180,000
into steel, fiberglass and rubber for casting the concrete structures,
until the funds started drying up last November. When the permits still
hadn't been approved by December, even that work groaned to a halt.
"These were painful months, and 'painful' is a gentle way to describe
it," says Levine, who had to lay off a receptionist, a graphic designer
and an event organizer. Meantime, he continued to print brochures and
business cards and to spam politicians for support. A part-time chief
financial officer and a Web designer worked without pay, and Levine, a
divorced father of four, says he gave his kids an IOU for Christmas. He
himself lived on borrowed money the first two years of the startup and
took a $26,000 salary only last year.
The waiting game finally ended in January, when the Army Corps issued
the permit to the county. Levine raised another $300,000 from investors.
He is meeting with funeral homes, beginning with those in Florida,
offering a 20% commission.

Levine insists he can make this nutty project work. AfterLife, he says,
will break even after 14 months or less of operation, on revenue of $3.3
million. There's at least one thing in his favor. More Americans are
choosing cremation--30% of the 2.4 million people who died in 2004.