The Brazilian football great bought his mausoleum 19 years ago inside the Memorial Ecumenical Cemetery. A real high-rise that holds the Guinness World Record for the tallest cemetery on Earth. His funeral was held Tuesday following his death last week at the age of 82. Pele was an extraordinary football player, and his final resting place will also be exceptional. Inside the world’s tallest vertical cemetery is a huge replica stadium with artificial turf.
The Brazilian football great bought his mausoleum 19 years ago inside the Memorial Ecumenical Cemetery. A real high-rise that holds the Guinness World Record for the tallest cemetery on Earth. The cemetery has a total area of 40,000 square meters (430,000 square feet) and is in Santos. The southeastern port city where “The King” played for most of his illustrious career. Has a restaurant open 24 hours a day, a chapel, a car museum, a small fish pond, and an aviary.
A spokesman for the cemetery stated that Pele’s 200-square-meter mausoleum. It will feature his embalmed body resting in a coffin. Displayed in the middle of the artificial turf and surrounded by gilded images from his glory days. In 2003, Pele’s real name. Edson Arantes do Nascimento stated that he liked the location. Because it “doesn’t look like a cemetery” and provided him with a sense of “spiritual peace and tranquility.”
The late Argentine businessman Jose Salomon Altstut had the idea for the striking white building. Which was built in 1983, it was the first vertical cemetery in the world to have space for mausoleums. There are 18,000 places to rest there. According to the website of the cemetery, customers can “create a decorated space” in their mausoleums. Which may even include restrooms for mourners.
Antonio Wilson Honorio, better known by his nickname “Coutinho,” was Pele’s teammate at Santos FC in the 1960s. Pele first dazzled the world as a 15-year-old phenom at Santos’ Vila Belmiro stadium. Where he went on to score a record 1,281 career goals and become the only player in history to win three World Cups. The cemetery is just a stone’s throw away from the stadium.