If you live off Pembroke Boulevard, your weekend map has quietly gotten bigger this year. The neighborhood itself has not changed much. The 1830 farmhouse on Cheswick Lane is still there. The pool on Pembroke Boulevard is still opening the same weekends it has for half a century. What has changed is the one-mile ring around it, where a $200 million redevelopment has started to reshape what "close to home" means for a Pembroke Meadows resident on a Saturday morning.
The thesis of this post is simple. You do not have to leave the neighborhood to find your weekend, and increasingly, you do not have to drive out of it either.
The 1830 House Most Neighbors Have Never Toured
Ferry Plantation House sits at 4136 Cheswick Lane, closer to most Pembroke Meadows front doors than the nearest grocery run. The site's history goes back further than the building itself. The Ferry Plantation dates back to 1642 when the "ferry" service was started by Adam Thoroughgood to connect plantations by the waterway, and the 3rd Princess Anne Courthouse built in 1735 including stock and pillory once stood on this site. The current house is a 1830 brick structure, once covered with oyster shell stucco, with a ten-room central passage plan, and it is one of the few Federal-era farmhouses in Virginia Beach you can actually walk through.
Tours run Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with the last tour starting at 2:00 p.m. The volunteers lean into the Grace Sherwood story, since near this site was the famous trial of Virginia's only convicted witch, Grace Sherwood, who was tried by water in 1706. If you have lived in Pembroke Meadows for years and never gone in, this is the kind of thing out-of-town guests remember far longer than an oceanfront afternoon.
Forty-Two Acres You Can Walk To
Head the other direction and you land at Lake Lawson/Lake Smith Natural Area, at the corner of Shell Road and Northampton Boulevard. It is easy to underrate a park you drive past every day. The numbers are worth revisiting:
- A 42-acre wooded preserve with over 1.5 miles of soft trails
- More than 12,000 feet of shoreline
- A 1.6-mile loop trail generally considered an easy route that takes an average of 29 minutes to complete
- Average water depth of about 4.5 feet with a maximum depth of about 9 feet
- Tree canopy of 88%
For paddlers, the wrinkle worth knowing is jurisdictional. All boats, including canoes, kayaks, and paddle boats, must have a valid City of Norfolk Boat Permit, because the reservoirs of Lake Smith and Lake Lawson are governed by the City of Norfolk. If you do not want to deal with the permit, kayaks rented through Parks and Recreation's Rent.Fun kiosk do not need a City of Norfolk Boat Permit, and rentals are available by scanning the QR code at the kiosk in the park. That is a five-minute Saturday plan. Grab coffee, drive four minutes, scan a QR code, be on the water.
Wildlife is a real draw here, not a brochure line. Reviewers note opportunities to view various wildlife including a bald eagle's nest off the lake.
The One-Mile Change Most Residents Have Not Priced In Yet
Now the part of the weekend map that is actively rewriting itself. One mile south of the neighborhood, the old Pembroke Mall is gone. In its place, the site, which made history in 1966 as the region's first shopping mall, is being redeveloped into the mixed-use Pembroke Square; demolition of the old structure began in March 2024, and developers are unveiling a lineup of new businesses aimed at reshaping the area's skyline and community offerings.
The Fogo de Chão is already open. After months of construction, Fogo de Chão in Virginia Beach's Pembroke Square area opened on Memorial Day, marking the popular chain's first restaurant in Hampton Roads. It sits at 4554 Virginia Beach Boulevard, across the street from The Cheesecake Factory, so anyone in Pembroke Meadows already knows the intersection.
The bigger shift is entertainment. The Funny Bone Comedy Club is moving from Town Center to Pembroke Square this fall, and it is bringing something new next door. This fall will see the opening of the Funny Bone Comedy Club and DraftCade, a gaming franchise that pairs nearly 50 rotating craft beer taps with over 75 classic arcade favorites; relocating from nearby Town Center, the Funny Bone will expand its footprint to increase showroom capacity by roughly 150 seats, giving it capacity for 450 patrons. A larger showroom is not a cosmetic change. Pembroke Square Associates says the expansion will allow the comedy club to attract bigger comedy acts.
The hotel and apartments are the slower shoes to drop. The Tempo by Hilton hotel, with 163 guestrooms, a bar and a restaurant, broke ground in May, with construction expected to wrap up by summer 2027. Then there is the residential piece: in early 2026, Pembroke Realty Group is expected to break ground on The Pembroke, a seven-story, 273-apartment complex located in the middle of the former mall, with a parking garage of over 600 spaces. None of this changes your Saturday tomorrow. It changes what a Saturday in 2027 looks like when you decide whether to walk or drive.
The Breakfast Spot That Actually Opened This Winter
While everyone was watching the big cranes, a smaller and more useful thing happened on Independence Boulevard. The D'egg Diner Pembroke recently opened in Virginia Beach near the Town Center area, in the spot where Anchor Allie's used to be. If you drove past a boarded-up Anchor Allie's for the last stretch of 2025, that space is now a working diner with, per the sign on the door, yellow and blue coloring that stands out more than the other businesses along Independence Boulevard. Northbound Independence traffic should note the workaround: coming along Independence Boulevard northbound, you'll need to make a U-turn at the traffic light at Jeanne Street.
The Neighborhood Fabric That Does Not Show Up On A Map
None of the above is why people stay in Pembroke Meadows. What holds the neighborhood together is not one mile south. It is a private swim club, a rec center, and a civic league that still puts on events the rest of Virginia Beach mostly does not.
The Pembroke Meadows Pool is a private, family-friendly, nonprofit swim club nestled in the neighborhood, and it is a volunteer-run organization that has been enriching the community for over 50 years. It sits at 4300 Pembroke Boulevard, essentially in the middle of everything. Peak summer hours are simple to remember: from June 15 to August 23, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 10:30 to 8:00, Friday and Saturday 10:30 to 9:00, closed on Tuesdays.
Around the corner, the Pembroke Meadows Recreation Center at 4294 Pembroke Boulevard functions as the neighborhood's default meeting place, described by neighbors as one of the area's key community resources, alongside churches and schools.
The Civic League runs an active calendar that most Virginia Beach neighborhoods have quietly let lapse. Their holiday season alone is worth noting: the judging process involved traversing through the neighborhood to witness the brilliance of over 300 homes bedecked in festive regalia, each home offering its unique display, from captivating light arrangements to imaginative decorations. Three hundred participating houses in one neighborhood is not a small number.
A Saturday, Sketched
If you are trying to picture what all of this looks like stitched together, here is one version of the day:
- Coffee at home, walk to the Lake Lawson trailhead off Shell Road, do the 1.6-mile loop before the parking lot fills.
- Rent a kayak at the Rent.Fun kiosk if the water is calm, skip the permit paperwork entirely.
- Late morning tour at Ferry Plantation House on Cheswick Lane, ten minutes from the trail.
- Lunch at D'egg Diner Pembroke on Independence, or drive one mile south to Fogo de Chão on Virginia Beach Boulevard.
- Afternoon at the Pembroke Meadows Pool if it is a summer Saturday.
- Comedy night at the relocated Funny Bone once fall arrives, with DraftCade before or after the show.
None of that requires the interstate. Most of it does not require a fifteen-minute drive.
The Quiet Pattern Underneath
The reason to write this post is that Pembroke Meadows is one of the few Virginia Beach neighborhoods where the everyday radius is getting shorter, not longer. Most Hampton Roads communities have watched their nearby retail thin out over the last decade. Here, the opposite is happening. A 1966 mall was demolished and is being rebuilt with a hotel, a comedy club, 273 apartments, and a green space, all within a mile of the pool your kids already swim at. The house on Cheswick Lane has been standing since Andrew Jackson was president. The pool has been running for over 50 years. The new pieces are being fitted around what already worked.
If you would like to talk through how life in Pembroke Meadows fits into a bigger picture, whether that is a first move into the neighborhood, a rental strategy for a second property, or simply an honest read on how the Pembroke Square build-out could shape the next few years, Just Call Coco. Let's connect.
