DATE: Saturday, August 16, 1997             TAG: 9708150598

SECTION: REAL ESTATE WEEKLY      PAGE: 3    EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MELISSA GUNDEL, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  145 lines

AT HOME: PEMBROKE MANOR, VIRGINIA BEACH A NICE PLACE TO LIVE, AT A GOOD PRICE

A home buyer can still find a big house with a large lot at a price that is affordable. Pembroke Manor is a neighborhood convenient to Virginia Beach's business district, a major shopping mall and one of the city's busiest thoroughfares - Independence Boulevard.

Though the neighborhood is in the hustle and bustle of downtown Virginia Beach, it doesn't deter people from a good deal.

``It is a viable neighborhood that people seek out, said Peg Coriell, a real estate agent with Prudential Decker Realty. ``People who are just starting out would look for property in this subdivision because it is still a nice place to live.''

Ted Brown, a Navy senior chief journalist and a newcomer to the area, felt it was an established neighborhood but was really drawn to the house and yard.

``I decided to buy the house before I saw the inside of it,'' Brown said. ``That was pretty much the selling point - the house and the yard.''

Brown bought a ranch with a large backyard that harbors about 14 pine trees and about a dozen fruit trees. He and his wife, Jenny, and her son, Dustin, 12, moved in the house in May.

The neighborhood is a tract development built in the early 60s by the Terry Corp., now Pembroke Enterprises. It sits north of Pembroke Mall, south of the waters of Pembroke Lakes and is divided in half by Independence Boulevard. The west side borders the Aragona Village area and the cut off is at Kellam Road.

The community is home for about 935 ranch style houses and colonial-style two stories. Most properties range from 1200 to 1700 square feet, are a combination of brick and vinyl and sit on large lots with well-landscaped yards.

A few owners have changed the floor plan since the community's inception.

Some have put additions on their houses; others have changed their garages into family rooms or dens. Many homes have pools in the backyard.

``I think the current residents who have been there for a number of years are really keeping their property up,'' Coriell says. ``They are putting on new roofs and putting in new windows and central air conditioning. It's a neighborhood that has kept its value,'' she noted.

Brown found this to be true with his current purchase.

``The folks who we bought it from took really good care of it,'' he said. ``As far as the structure of the house itself - the roof, the plumbing, the electrical system - everything is really solid in the house,'' he said.

However, he will probably make some changes here and there.

``There's always things that can be improved,'' Brown said. ``There's always minor things you want to do when you move into a house and upgrade and replace and change to suit the way you like it.''

One thing that hasn't changed is neighborhood's richness in history.

The neighborhood, with many street names from the Revolutionary War, was named after the Pembroke Manor House, an 18th Century Georgian mansion. The house was built by Capt. Jonathan Saunders in 1764 and still sits on Constitution Drive. John Saunders, the son of Capt. Saunders, lived in the house during the American Revolution and fought for the British cause. After the revolution, then-Virginia Gov. Thomas Jefferson evicted Saunders and threw him out of the country because he was a loyalist.

The property was auctioned to the Kellam family.

Since then, the house has been owned by many families, and it was an insurance business in the '80s.

Tony Dimino and his wife, Shirley, purchased the house in 1993 to turn it into the Ivy League Academy, a Christian school for pre-K through fifth grade. According to Dimino, there was also a schoolhouse on the manor house plantation about 300 years ago.

Dimino said extensive renovation had to be done on the property, which now occupies an acre and a quarter of land, to accommodate the school. They added a second stairwell, a bathroom and finished the basement. The school today is filled with antiques, reproduction furnishings from colonial times and everything has been refurbished.

Another plus for manor residents is it is centrally located to the mall, Columbus Movies 12, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, the interstate and military bases.

``It's convenient for most residents to walk to Pembroke Mall. There is also a bus line that stops at Pembroke Mall, making it more convenient for those who might live in a subdivision that isn't close to the mall,'' Coriell said. The neighborhood is described as a close-knit community with mostly families residing there. It has a civic league and its own community center.

Tom Shelby, the civic league president, says their main purpose is to rent out the neighborhood's community center for parties and clubs. They participate in neighborhood functions such as Clean the Bay Day, and they have an annual Christmas pot luck dinner for the neighbors.

The league is also trying to implement a neighborhood watch program.

As a child, Shelby lived in the subdivision in 1971. He moved away in 1984 and moved back to the area in 1990.

``It's an extremely nice neighborhood and we were able to buy a nice house for an excellent buy,'' said Shelby, 33, and director of maintenance for the Norfolk Navy Flying Club at the Norfolk Naval Air Station.

Shelby's father lives on the same block as the younger Shelby.

The property owners haven't been the only ones making changes to the neighborhood. When the area was built, Independence Boulevard had two lanes on each side. In the late '80s, the city developed plans to widen it to four on each side to prevent gridlock. More than 20 homes in the neighborhood were torn down to widen the boulevard.

More recently, there were plans for the city to possibly acquire more homes to widen Jeanne Street. Until about a year ago, the city planned to take down eight or nine houses along Jeanne Street, right behind the mall, said Jim Lawson, city real estate agent for the city of Virginia Beach.

But after meeting with homeowners and the civic league, the city decided not to, he added.

The city still may make some improvements at the intersection of Constitution Drive and Jeanne Street, Lawson said. ``The improvements that we plan don't severely impact anyone's property,'' he said.

Rich Nettleton, a civil engineer with the city of Virginia Beach said the city plans to put in some brick pavers and some landscape plants at the intersection.

``We're going to have a little island and try to dress up that area there. We have not done anything yet. We're supposed to be finished with the site acquisition in November. We anticipate we will be able to start construction in April of 1998,'' he said.

But no matter what changes may occur, this is home sweet home for folks such as Brown.

``This is the last time I want to move,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

CHARLIE MEADS

The Virginian-Pilot

Ted Brown...

Shirley and Tony Dimino...

AT A GLANCE

VP MAP

About The Neighborhood

Schools: Pembroke Elementary. Independence Middle School or

Bayside Middle School depending on what side of Independence

Boulevard you live on. Princess Anne or Bayside High Schools.