News

Judge orders new auction of Shepherd Memorial Park

By Bill Moss, Published: June 8, 2025

The judge overseeing the receivership of Shepherd Memorial Park has ordered a new auction after an initial attempt at a public sale failed to produce a single bid.

Superior Court Judge Marvin P. Pope on May 1 ordered the second attempt to sell the cemetery on the courthouse steps at 10 a.m. Thursday, June 26. The mulligan on the sale of the cemetery and its assets comes as the lawsuit by the state Cemetery Commission reaches four years old with no lasting resolution. In separate enforcement actions, the North Carolina Board of Funeral Service shut down the century-old Thos. Shepherd & Son funeral home and the Cemetery Commission forced the cemetery into receivership after numerous complaints from clients.

When he ordered the sale at public auction in December, Judge Pope set a minimum bid of $1.22 million based on a court-ordered appraisal of the memorial park that set a fair-market value between $900,000 and $1.4 million. Unlike the failed sale on March 5, the new auction will open with no minimum bid.

"There is no minimum but the judge has the right to approve the sale," Mark White, the court-appointed auctioneer, said Friday.

"Any bid is subject to the approval of the court," which will convene "a hearing for approval ... immediately following the sale," a legal advertisement announcing the public auction says. The legal ad is scheduled to run in the June 11 issue of the Lightning. 

In addition to the cemetery grounds, the sale would include equipment, furniture, vehicles, accounts receivables and "the goodwill of the defendant," the court said. The order allows potential bidders to inspect vehicles, backhoes, front-loaders, mowers, blowers, weedeaters and other equipment from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Wednesday, June 25. Any successful bidder for the grounds and property must be a licensed cemetery operator under North Carolina law.

The most likely potential bidder could be Altmeyer Funeral Homes, which owns the Forest Lawn and Shuler funeral businesses in Hendersonville and was winning bidder, at $2,025,000, when the Shepherd funeral home was sold at auction in 2022. Altmeyer now operates the downtown business as Church Street Funeral & Cremation.