Ellingwood Chapel, the centerpiece of this fine rural cemetery, is an excellent example of the restrained Norman Revival manner that Ralph Adams Cram explored in a series of small chapels in the 1910s. Cram sited Ellingwood Chapel at the northern end of Greenlawn Cemetery, originally laid out in 1856–1858 as one of the first municipal projects after Nahant became a separate community in 1853. Luther Scott Johnson provided the funds for the chapel as a memorial to his parents. Emphasizing an architecture of wall and volume, Cram used random-sized granite, quarried in Nahant, trimmed with cast stone. Charles J. Connick, Cram's frequent collaborator, created the light-colored stained glass windows. To reinforce the dominance of his chapel, Cram designed the entrance gates and stone walls that surround the cemetery.