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Families in Chapel Hill and Carrboro previously arranged water cremation through a location twelve miles away. A new address changes that.
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina, United States – September 8, 2026 – Families in Chapel Hill and Carrboro can now arrange aquamation and green burial without leaving their own town, following the opening of a third location by Endswell Funeral Home at 601 W. Rosemary St., Unit 109.
Until now, those arrangements were handled from the company’s Hillsborough site, roughly twelve miles north. For families making decisions in the days after a death, that distance was a practical obstacle.
Endswell Funeral Home is based in North Carolina, United States, and is the only provider of aquamation in the Triangle region.
What Aquamation Is
Water cremation, known technically as alkaline hydrolysis and marketed as aquamation, breaks a body down to bone mineral using heated water and an alkaline solution instead of fire. The family receives remains in much the same form as after flame cremation.
According to Hunter Beattie, co-owner and co-founder, the process does not release toxic or carcinogenic gases and produces no carbon emissions. Those were the properties that drew the founders to it in the first place.
The process is unfamiliar to many families, partly because so few facilities offer it. Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s choice of aquamation brought it wider attention, and it was reading about that decision, near a Carrboro cemetery in early 2022, that led Hunter Beattie and Veronica Penn Beattie to found the company.
What Is Available at the New Address
The Chapel Hill location is a standalone, staffed building with its own signage. Arrangements available there run from water cremation and conservation burial through to conventional cremation and casketed burial.
Preplanning appointments are also handled there. Preplanning allows a person to record and often prepay their own arrangements in advance, which removes both the guesswork and a significant cost from the family later.
The company publishes its general price list openly rather than providing figures only on request, a practice still uncommon in the sector.
“Opening in Chapel Hill is not a victory lap,” said Hunter Beattie. “It means a family in Carrboro or Chapel Hill who wants a gentler option no longer has to drive to Hillsborough to sit down and talk about it. That drive sounds small until you are the one making it.”
Green Burial and the Conservation Option
Alongside aquamation, the company handles green and natural burial, in which a body is buried without embalming chemicals, in a biodegradable casket or shroud.
Endswell assists with the majority of natural burials at Bluestem Conservation Cemetery, a conservation burial ground that began operating in 2022. Conservation burial grounds combine burial with permanent land protection, so the site remains undeveloped.
“People assume choosing something greener means choosing something colder, or more complicated, or more expensive,” said Veronica Penn Beattie, co-owner and co-founder. “It is none of those things. What families tell us, over and over, is that it simply felt right.”
Cost and Practicalities
Families weighing options are generally advised to ask any funeral home for its general price list, which providers in the United States are required to supply, and to ask what is included rather than comparing headline figures alone.
The Chapel Hill location is open for at-need arrangements, meaning a death that has already occurred, as well as preplanning. Endswell continues to operate its Hillsborough location at 407 Meadowlands Dr. and its Durham location at 116 Crutchfield St., with staff shared across all three.
The company covers Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Durham, Mebane, Pittsboro and surrounding Triangle communities, and takes calls around the clock.
What Happens on the First Call
Most families contact a funeral home within hours of a death, often from a hospital, a hospice or a home. The first call establishes where the person has died, who has legal authority to make arrangements, and whether the death has been reported to the relevant authorities.
Transport of the person into the funeral home’s care usually follows the same day. Decisions about the service itself, whether that is aquamation, burial or cremation, are generally made at a meeting a day or two later, which is the appointment the Chapel Hill address now hosts locally.
Families are not required to make every decision at once, and are not required to use a funeral home for every element of the process. In the United States, providers must supply a general price list to anyone who asks in person, under the Federal Trade Commission’s Funeral Rule, and families may decline items they do not want.
About Endswell Funeral Home
Endswell Funeral Home, established 2022, works across North Carolina, United States from addresses in Hillsborough, Durham and Chapel Hill. Hunter Beattie and Veronica Penn Beattie own the practice, which handles aquamation, green burial, cremation and traditional funeral arrangements and is the region’s sole aquamation provider.
