Bruce Lee’s Grave Site: A Complete Visitor’s Guide to Lake View Cemetery

Lake View Cemetery in Seattle occupies a hillside in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, about a mile from the University of Washington campus where Bruce Lee studied philosophy in the early 1960s. The cemetery opened in 1887 and holds the graves of several prominent Seattle figures. Most visitors today come for one specific section near the eastern perimeter.

Bruce Lee has been buried there since July 31, 1973, eleven days after his death in Hong Kong. His son Brandon, who died on a film set in Wilmington, North Carolina in March 1993, was buried beside him four months later. The two graves are the most visited in the cemetery by a significant margin.

Getting There

Lake View Cemetery is located at 1554 15th Avenue East, Seattle, Washington 98112. It is open to visitors daily from 9 a.m. to dusk. There is no admission charge.

From downtown Seattle, the cemetery is about a 15-minute drive or a 30 to 40 minute trip by public transit. The 10 and 49 bus routes stop nearby on 15th Avenue East. If you are walking from Capitol Hill’s main commercial area on Broadway, the walk takes approximately 20 minutes uphill.

Parking is available along 15th Avenue East and inside the cemetery entrance. On weekends and during summer months, the lot near the Lee graves fills quickly in the morning. Arriving before 10 a.m. avoids most of the crowd.

Finding the Graves

From the main entrance on 15th Avenue East, follow the paved road into the cemetery and bear right. The Lee family plot is in Section 1, near the eastern side of the grounds. Most visitors navigate by following whoever is already walking purposefully in one direction, as the graves are well-known to regular cemetery visitors who are happy to point newcomers in the right direction.

The headstones are distinctive. Bruce Lee’s is a reddish-brown granite marker with his name in both English and Chinese characters, his birth and death dates (November 27, 1940 and July 20, 1973), and the inscription “Founder of Jeet Kune Do.” Brandon Lee’s matching marker is directly beside it, with his dates of February 1, 1965 and March 28, 1993.

Both graves typically have fresh flowers, pennies, small stones, and notes left by visitors. The cemetery staff clear the offerings periodically but the accumulation builds again within days.

What to Expect on the Visit

The site draws visitors from around the world throughout the year. On a typical summer weekend morning, you will share the space with anywhere from a handful to two or three dozen other people. The atmosphere is respectful rather than tourist-crowded. Most visitors are clearly there because Bruce Lee’s work has genuinely meant something to them, which gives the place a different quality than a conventional tourist attraction.

People bring flowers, incense, small figurines, notes, and occasionally nunchaku. Some visitors sit for a while. Some take photographs. Some simply stand quietly for a few minutes and leave. The cemetery does not restrict photography.

Winter visits are less crowded and have their own character. Seattle’s grey winter light and the quiet of the cemetery in the off-season make for a more private experience if that is what you prefer.

Brandon Lee’s Grave

Brandon Lee died at age 28 during the filming of “The Crow” when a prop gun discharged a bullet fragment that had been lodged in the barrel from a previous misfire. The accident occurred on March 30, 1993, and he died in hospital on March 31. The film was completed using alternative footage and digital techniques and released in 1994. It became a significant commercial and critical success.

Brandon’s grave draws visitors independently of his father’s, particularly fans of “The Crow.” The two graves are close enough that most visitors pay respects to both. A consistent stream of Crow-related items appears on Brandon’s marker alongside more general tributes.

The Bruce Lee Memorial in Seattle

Separate from the cemetery, the Seattle Chinese Garden in the South Seattle neighborhood of Rainier Beach has a formal Bruce Lee memorial garden. Seattle also unveiled a bronze statue of Bruce Lee in 1997, which stands in the Chinatown-International District at the corner of Maynard Avenue South and South King Street. The statue was created by sculptor Radovan Trnavsky, who also made the Bruce Lee statue in Mostar, Bosnia.

If you are making a trip specifically to visit the grave, combining it with the Chinatown-International District statue and a walk through Capitol Hill’s neighborhoods makes for a full half-day in areas of the city that have their own character worth seeing.

Visiting Etiquette

Lake View Cemetery requests that visitors remain on paved paths where possible and do not walk across other graves to reach the Lee plots. The staff have been accommodating to the volume of Bruce Lee visitors for decades and are generally friendly to questions about the cemetery’s history and layout.

Leaving offerings at the grave is accepted and expected. Removing offerings that others have left is not. The most common items left by visitors are flowers, coins, stones, handwritten notes, and small martial arts-related objects. All are appropriate.

The cemetery is an active burial ground with ongoing interments. On days when a funeral service is scheduled nearby, visitors to the Lee graves are asked to keep noise levels down and give the service appropriate distance and quiet.