NEWPORT NEWS — A site on Jefferson Avenue in the city’s southeast community that’s housed Black-owned businesses for about a century has received state recognition as a historic landmark.

Pearlie’s Restaurant, at 2108 Jefferson Ave., was also documented in a statewide survey of 304 places in Virginia that appeared in the “Negro Traveler’s Green Book”. The Board of Historic Resources approved both decisions during a March 19 public meeting, per a news release.

Created in the 1930s, and published for about 30 years, the “Green Book” was a printed guide of businesses throughout the U.S. that would serve Black patrons during the segregation era.

Although the current building on Jefferson Avenue dates to the early 1950s, the location was home to an earlier structure, dating to the 1920s, that also housed Black-owned restaurants, a market and a barber shop operating under various names, according to historical documents.

Pearlie B. Rice, the eatery’s namesake and owner, died in 1999. The business later closed. Husband and wife Mikel and Evelyn Azeem purchased Pearlie’s in 2007.

Azeem grew up on Jefferson Avenue. She said the historic recognition is bittersweet because her husband, a professional master chef who cast the vision for the revamped restaurant, isn’t here to appreciate it. He died in 2022. “It’s due to his brilliance that we even bought this building,” Azeem said. “I did not want to buy it because when I stepped into it, all I could say was, ‘This is a dump,’” Azeem recalled.

They invested their savings in a renovation that restored and improved the building’s functionality while retaining its aesthetics and character.

City directories, insurance maps and newspaper advertisements show the 1920s-era building at 2108 Jefferson Ave. housed restaurants, a market and a barber shop before its demolition around the early 1950s. From 1951 through the present, the space has housed restaurants under various names. It began operating as Pearlie’s Grill in 1968.

Pearlie’s is “one of the last remaining historically African American-owned and operated restaurants — including ownership and operation by African American women — in the historically African American, East End Jefferson Avenue commercial corridor,” according to historic preservation documentation prepared by Commonwealth Preservation Group. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources hired the company in 2023 to complete the survey, Ashley King, the firm’s director of external operation, said in an email. The company also surveyed 59 surviving “Green Book”-listed sites in Virginia.

Azeem said having love for and a heart for the community has sustained the business. Pearlie’s has offered free Thanksgiving meals to anyone in need for years. And the restaurant also hosts community programs and open mic music nights. Newport News has placed a historic marker at the restaurant.

Although Pearlie’s is temporarily closed while Azeem recovers from knee surgery, she vowed, “we’ll be back and we’ll open that door.”

The Board of Historic Resources also added the Ames-Old Farm and its 200-plus-year-old farmhouse in Suffolk to the state historic register during its recent meeting.

Located on Knotts Neck Road, the property’s centerpiece is a two-and-a-half story, circa 1815 house that “exemplifies the typical home of a yeoman farmer in Virginia’s Tidewater region in the early 19th century.” The house was expanded around 1875 with a kitchen and dining room. The house and surrounding farmland have stayed in the hands of just two families in 400 years.

Remodeling and additions were made in 1965 and in 1985. However, the 20th century renovations did not significantly affect the home’s character or integrity, according to the historians.

The former Daily Press building at 7505 Warwick Blvd. in Newport News was added to Virginia’s historic register in December.

Historians cited its modernist aesthetic, New Formalism architecture and its design by local architect Forrest W. Coile. Opened in 1968 and built by W.M. Jordan for $5 million, the building housed all of the newspaper’s operations under one roof — including printing — in a three story building with marble slab walls, terrazzo flooring, a floating staircase in the central lobby and a two story basement. Coile was also the primary architect for Christopher Newport University. He designed many of the campus’s original buildings, as well as local schools and houses of worship.

The Daily Press left the Warwick Boulevard building in 2014. The newspaper now shares consolidated office space with The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk. The Pilot moved out of its longtime downtown building at 150 W. Brambleton Ave. in 2020 after more than 80 years.

Elsewhere in Virginia, the DHR approved the following additions to the historic register: Henry Clay Elementary School in Ashland in Hanover County, built in 1934; The Saunders House in Warrenton, built in 1870; Montvale High School in Bedford County, built in 1930; Randolph-Macon Woman’s College Historic District in Lynchburg, built from 1891 to 1975; and Fishburn Park Keeper’s Cottage in Roanoke, built between 1820 and 1850.

DHR said in a statement there isn’t a singular greatest threat to historic properties and noted that “‘threats to recognizing’ are different from ‘threats to preserving’” historic places.

“Sometimes it is development pressure. Sometimes it is because the significance of a property is not known, and there hasn’t been much planning done in an area to identify significant historic resources. Other times it is because a property has been neglected and there is not enough funding to repair and/or put back into use,” the department said.

Nate Delesline III, nate.delesline@virginiamedia.com