Landed in Las Vegas

LANDED IN LAS VEGAS Peter & Janet Castellano

Andre Taylor Photography

Living LArge LV Peter Castellano on duty with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. P eter and Janet Castellano moved to Las Vegas all the way from New York back in the summer of 2001. While their reason to move wasn’t ideal, the move itself ended up being benefcial for their whole family.

“Peter and I have been married for 30 years and we relocated because my mom had dementia and believe it or not, Las Vegas has the best dementia care facilities here. When my dad passed away and my mom had dementia, we said ‘we’ll try it and if we don’t like it we can always move back,” Janet said. “We relocated here from New York, but Peter’s family lived here and my girls were only six and seven so it was a little bit easier for us to transition here and the perfect time for us to move cross country.”

Prior to moving cross country, Peter had visited the city of Las Vegas and loved it. He even recommended that his parents come here for their 40th wedding anniversary, which led to them moving here with Peter and Janet’s family not far behind.

“I’ve been coming to Vegas since 1978. Totally loved the place back in the old days. I love everything about Vegas because of working in a nightclub and the nightlife, things like that. Plus, it was just a place that I always wanted to come to. But, I love everything about Las Vegas: the weather, the slow pace (with less than a million people at the time). Everybody in New York is rushing to go nowhere in a hurry; in Vegas everything was ‘why do it today when you can put it of until tomorrow.’ It was nice, people were diferent, everything was spread out. It was a nice change. And, what’s not to love about Vegas,” Peter said. While there’s a common misconception that Las Vegas isn’t a great place to start a family and raise children, Janet and Peter feel the opposite.

“We just love the lifestyle, love that kids can be kids here, they don’t grow up too fast,” Janet said.

Janet and Peter’s two daughters, Liana and Stephanie, both went to school here in Las Vegas as they were growing up. Steph-

“I’m a landscape contractor, we’ve been in business since 2002. It started as a hobby when my girls were still young and I was only 47 years old. We started small, then things grew,” Peter said.

The Castellano’s business grew over several years and became a sucessful local business in the Las Vegas Valley when it really started to economize in the early 2000’s, even after 2008.

Due to Peter and Janet’s work ethic being refected in their business, they were able to survive the economic recession back in 2008.

Within their business, though, respect goes a long way which has bred loyalty among the Castellano’s few, but loyal, employees “Out of the 11 employees I have, fve of them have been with me for over ten years, one of them has been with me since day one, and another one has been with me for 15 years,” Peter said. “And that’s because although we are technically a corporation, we call ourselves a family. When the market crashed, we took care of each other, it was something that would never happen back east.” The Castellano’s business, PD Landscaping continues to thrive today in the Las Vegas community, something people who aren’t locals think we don’t have - another misconception debunked by Janet & Peter.

“We live in a beautiful community in Summerlin and there’s parks everywhere, there’s always an activity every weekend. There’s so much going on and there was never a lack of things for our girls to do,” Janet said.

Today Peter and Janet are both diehard Golden Knights fans. They enjoy attending the hockey games in the T-Mobile Arena and going to the brand new Las Vegas Ballpark stadium in Downtown Summerlin, home of Las Vegas’ AAA team, The Aviators. In addition to the ballpark, Downtown Summerlin also ofers a large array and variety of food choices that seem like they never end. With all this located right in their neighborhood, Peter and Janet are proud to call themselves Nevadans and declare Las Vegas as their home, even if they can’t get rid of their New York accents. LV

Peter & Janet Castellano at a Golden Night’s game sporting new hats as a special gift from the team for a First Responder’s Night.

anie graduated from UNLV and now works at Konami Gaming here in Las Vegas.

“There’s so many opportunities for kids here, especially nowadays. If they’re smart and they apply themselves, this is a great place,” Janet said. There’s so much diversity here, you can graduate high school and be a pilot if you go to a magnet school. There’s just so much here.”

The Castellano’s have always been productive and hardworking. Back in New York before moving out to Vegas, Peter was a police ofcer with the NYPD. Because of his work, he was recognized with numerous community awards including Cop of the Year by the Elk Lodge of Staten Island in 1994. Feb. 27th has even been recognized as “Police Ofcer Peter Castellano Day” by the Burrow President of Staten Island.

Fast forward to today where Peter and Janet have successfully raised not only their daughters, but their business - PD Landscaping - here in the Las Vegas Valley as well.