One of Portsmouth’s historic buildings, a stop on the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, will be on the auction block this week.

One of Portsmouth’s historic buildings, a stop on the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, will be on the auction block this week.

The Pearl of Portsmouth, formerly a church, then restaurant, and currently a wedding chapel and function hall, goes up for bid this Thursday, Oct. 6.

Owner Margaret Britton, a retired Unity minister, has been trying to sell the building for almost a year. The minimum asking price is $300,000. The building, located at 45 Pearl St., is assessed at $409,300.
Britton presided over weddings and receptions in the building for nine years, and the Pearl also served as her residence. She retired from ministry in 2004, moved out and put the building up for sale. Three prospective buyers were interested in The Pearl, she said, but all the sales fell through for various reasons. Holding an auction is the fastest way to complete the sale, she said.

“It’s a big building to be supporting and not be in it,” she said.

Once the building is sold, Britton said she plans to travel to Ghana in January to start a Unity church there. Two tribal chiefs from Accra, Ghana, were in Portsmouth recently, as part of the Portsmouth-Greater Accra Sister City Connection. One of the chiefs approached Britton and asked her to come to his village, she said.

“I didn’t think I was ever going to do that again,” she said. “At first I wasn’t inclined to do it, (but) he was very persuasive.”

Valerie Cunningham, chairwoman of the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, helped lead preservation efforts for The Pearl in the 1990s. During the last year, Britton said the PBHT had considered purchasing the building. However, Cunningham said there are no current plans to purchase The Pearl.
“Regardless of who the owner is, whether we are the owner or who the new owner might be, we would hope to continue the same type of relationship we had with the current owner,” Cunningham said. “We just hope the new owner will have a real appreciation for the history of the building and the interest of the public in being able to have access to it.”

That might prove difficult, depending on the owner. Though there are historic preservation easements on The Pearl’s steeple and sanctuary, the rest of the building can be renovated to meet the new owner’s needs. Among the previous three failed sales, Britton said one buyer wanted to turn The Pearl into a cabaret and another wanted to make it a private residence.

Built in 1858, the building became the People’s Baptist Church in 1892 and was regarded as the hub of African American life in Portsmouth. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke there in 1952, in celebration of the church’s 59th anniversary. In the 1970s the church disbanded, and in the 1980s the building was converted into a gourmet restaurant. In the mid-1990s, Britton purchased the building and renovated it, transforming it into a function hall and chapel.

“When I bought it, there were buckets around catching water, the ceiling was coming down, there were no light fixtures in may locations … the sprinkler system had gone off inside,” Britton said. 
It took roughly $300,000 to renovate the building, Britton said, with half that amount coming from a grant from the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program. Since then, The Pearl has been listed on the state and National Register of Historic Places.

Britton felt a “sweet sadness” when she moved out of the building last year.

“I remember crying as I was sweeping the floor,” she said. Recalling the condition of the building, a wave of nostalgia swept over her, she said.

The Pearl also houses two private apartments, both of which are currently occupied. The two spaces, rented at $860 each a month, are the “lifeblood” of the building, according to Britton. “The building needs an income that sustains it. The apartments really do support it quite a bit.”

Uncertainty about the building’s future is nothing new to Cunningham, and she’s hopeful The Pearl will find a new owner that appreciates the building’s history.

“Whenever things are in transition, I guess there’s a certain amount of anxiety, but we’ve always not known (the future) and things have always, so far, turned out well,” she said. “The building is still there and it is historically preserved, so as far as that is concerned, we feel we have accomplished our mission.”