In Memory of Elena Pascarella
Elena “Ellie” Pascarella
1952 - 2026
Relatives and friends are invited to her VISITATION on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, from 4:00 PM until 7:00 PM in the “WOODLAWN” Funeral Home, 600 Pontiac Ave., Cranston. Her funeral will begin Thursday, October 1, 2026, at 9:00 AM at the funeral home, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 10:30 AM in Our Lady of Mercy Church, East Greenwich. Burial will follow at St. Ann Cemetery.
Dear RIASLA Members and Friends,
It is with great sadness that we share the passing of our friend, colleague, and longtime RIASLA member, Elena “Ellie” Pascarella.
Ellie was a dedicated landscape architect whose career and service left a meaningful mark on Rhode Island and on generations of landscape architects who had the opportunity to know and work with her. Over a career spanning several decades, Ellie practiced throughout Rhode Island and southern New England, including through her firm, Landscape Elements, LLC.
Those who knew Ellie will also remember her kindness and generosity. She was always willing to share her knowledge, experience, and appreciation of landscapes with others. Over the years, numerous students from RISD and URI had opportunities to learn directly from Ellie, whether as interns and staff within her creative practice or through her involvement as a mentor and critic. She gave young landscape architects an opportunity not simply to work, but to learn from her experience and develop their own understanding of the profession.
One of Ellie’s most enduring contributions was her dedication to the preservation and documentation of Rhode Island’s historic landscapes. As RIASLA’s longtime Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) Liaison, Ellie continuously researched, documented, and brought greater awareness to landscapes that tell important stories about Rhode Island’s history and its people.
Her efforts helped bring attention to places ranging from Wilcox Park in Westerly to Rhode Island’s historic cemeteries, including God’s Little Acre in Newport, an extraordinarily important landscape containing one of the nation’s most significant surviving collections of gravestones associated with enslaved and free Africans.
Several years ago, RIASLA had the privilege of helping to recognize Ellie with a Congressional Citation from U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse for her longstanding contributions to Rhode Island. The recognition reflected her decades of practice, her contributions at RIDEM, her mentorship of students at URI and RISD, and her dedication to historic preservation, environmental stewardship, and the documentation of Rhode Island’s historic landscapes. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to recognize and thank Ellie for these contributions during her lifetime, and those sentiments feel especially meaningful today.
Ellie understood that landscapes are more than the places we design. They carry history, culture, ecology, memory, and the stories of the people who came before us. Just as importantly, she understood the value of sharing that knowledge with those who would come after her.
Through her practice, advocacy, research, mentorship, and friendship, Ellie gave a great deal to Rhode Island’s landscape architecture community. Her generosity with her knowledge and her genuine kindness toward her colleagues and students will be an important part of her legacy.
On behalf of RIASLA and Rhode Island’s landscape architecture community, we extend our deepest condolences to Ellie’s family, friends, colleagues, former students, and all those whose lives she touched. We are grateful for everything she contributed to our profession and our state, and she will be deeply missed.
Information regarding Ellie’s services and an opportunity to share memories and condolences with her family can be found in her obituary:
Elena M. Pascarella – Woodlawn Funeral Home
https://www.woodlawnri.com/obituary/Elena-Pascarella
RIASLA will also be putting together a remembrance of Ellie for an upcoming newsletter. If you have a story, memory, photograph, or other image you would like to share, please send it to RhodeIslandASLA@gmail.com. We would be grateful to hear from those who knew and worked with Ellie and will do our best to incorporate these memories into a celebration of her life, work, and contributions to our community.
With sympathy,
Rhode Island Chapter
American Society of Landscape Architects