General manager

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Stephanie Bonney was born and raised in New England. She has a degree in psychology from Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Having always had an interest in deathcare, Stephanie went back to school briefly for mortuary science and apprenticed at a funeral home in Vermont before becoming the youngest and first female superintendent of Vermont’s only non-profit crematory (and 60-acre cemetery). This position provided vast insight into the injustices that plague the modern funeral industry, some of which came from within her own organization. In hopes of connecting with people whose values more closely aligned with her own, she searched for her next adventure. 

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Good friends and an alignment of stars led Stephanie to the Murray family in 2021. After a year of Zoom calls and a whirlwind visit, she and her family moved to Charlottesville before Christmas this past year. Stephanie believes Panorama Natural Burial has something to offer everyone, with a very clear mission of land stewardship, honesty, and family values. She’s looking forward to seeing the business blossom into something truly special for the Charlottesville community.

Founding director

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Rarely does one stumble on work that feeds body, mind, and spirit. Christopher Murray has been incredibly fortunate that Panorama Natural Burial has become one of those vocations. Having buried three family members at the 200-year-old cemetery on Panorama Farms, he saw how leveraging that experience might help the Murray family save Panorama from encroaching development; how it could give the local community a third deathcare option for their loved ones; and how it would cement the legacy of his parents Jim & Bunny Murray, who were avid environmentalists.

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Chris developed affordable housing while working for The Jefferson Area Board for Aging (JABA). Now retired, he subsequently developed and owned Carlton House, a 10-room “group care home” for the formerly homeless and minimally employed. His private sector work includes being a principal in a local, architectural woodworking firm; designing products for several international furniture manufacturers; and, in the early 1990s, co-founding The Children’s Furniture Company. 

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Chris has a bachelor’s degree from Washington & Lee University; a Master’s of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University; and is a Certified Aging in Place Specialist. A local resident since 1953, he is married; has two children and three grandchildren.

Assistant manager

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Liz was born of the mountains of southern Appalachia and is grateful to have ancestry in Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. After living and working in Russia, Japan, Greece, Germany and several US states in her 20s, Liz settled in Charlottesville in 2016, where she trained in Alexander Technique and also took part in stewarding local Buddhist communities. Liz is currently training as a Buddhist chaplain in addition to working for Central Virginia Community Justice as a restorative justice facilitator. In her free time, there is nothing she loves more than deep woods, long hikes and swimming in open bodies of water. Liz is grateful to be supporting Panorama Natural Burial as our local and global communities learn how to steward and safeguard our Earth in more loving and caring ways.