Justin Pelis Finds Purpose at Look Park
By Melissa Karen Sances | Photos by Nikki Gardner Studio
Published In Northampton Living | May 2026
Justin Pelis has spent a lifetime at Look Park. Now the executive director of the city’s beloved green space, he remembers childhood visits with his grandfather, who introduced him to sprawling trees and hickory nuts.
“I have a vivid memory of him trying to collect the hickory nuts to eat,” he said with a laugh. “There’s barely anything in those things.”
Pelis got a taste for landscaping and maintenance at age 11, when he worked his first summer job at the former Pine Grove Golf Course in Northampton.
The owners, who didn’t have children, took Pelis under their wing.
“I felt like I was part-owner,” he remembered. “It was a really rewarding part of my life growing up in that business and seeing how hard they worked.”
After college at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, he thought he might take on the corporate world. But while in Boston, he spent most of his time at the Boston Common, a 50-acre park that spans downtown. So he returned to his roots.
At UMass Amherst's Stockbridge School of Agriculture, he studied horticulture and enjoyed mentoring students coming out of high school.
In 2003, Pelis opened North Country Landscapes in Westhampton, where he developed a garden center and maximized his passion for growth for 15 years.
In 2018 Look Park offered him a position as the Director of Facilities and Maintenance, and he made the difficult decision to leave his business and, in a way, go back to the beginning.
One of the things he loves most about the 153-acre park is its intergenerational appeal.
“We see many parents pushing their children in strollers, and later those same kids are running around on the playgrounds. Years later, many return as high school students to take on their very first job here. We watch couples get married here, and eventually, as seniors, they can be seen strolling along the numerous pathways.”
Pelis, who became the interim executive director in 2022 and is now the executive director, loves that his job imbues him with purpose.
“You can take a break and take a walk and say hi to your patrons and donors,” he said. “I don’t feel like it’s a job, it’s a lifestyle.”
“There's a little bit of everything for everyone,” he said, in a park that includes wooded spaces, Willow Lake, the Pines Theater, picnic sites, playgrounds, a steamer train and the beloved Garden House.
It’s a unique place with a unique back story – and it’s almost 100 years old.
Fannie Burr Look gifted the park to the community in memory of her late husband, and the park opened to about 10,000 people in 1930.
Pelis said that about 500,000 people come through the park each year, and that multiple events bring in thousands of people at once. Look Park is already planning for its centennial celebration in 2030.
The park works with hundreds of nonprofits per year to hold events in all seasons.
“The more you give back, the more you receive,” said Pelis, who teaches a year-round landscape course at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Corrections. “You’re not going to affect everybody, but if you just change one person’s life, you can make a difference.”
He also serves as the treasurer at the Stavros Center for Independent Living in Amherst, where his mother both worked and received services.
The center will hold a “Rock, Roll and Stroll” event at Look Park on July 25.
Other upcoming events include the Look Park Springtacular Festival on May 30 and the Franklin King Children’s Series from June 23 to August 4. More information can be found at lookpark.org.
Look Park is accessible on foot, by bike, by car and by bus to local, national and international visitors who come to “take a little day vacation.”
“It's a really important asset to western Mass,” said Pelis.
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