A search of Lexis-Nexis finds an article from the Virginian Pilot of February 18, 2001, that appears to be about the building in question.  It begins:

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The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)
February 18, 2001 Sunday Final Edition
SECTION: LOCAL, Pg. B1

PLEASURE HOUSE OF EARLIER TIMES LIVES ON IN A ROAD NAME
BYLINE: GEORGE TUCKER

Pleasure House Road in the northern sector of the city of Virginia Beach took its name from the fact that during Revolutionary and early Federal times it was the primrose path of dalliance to a Chesapeake bayside "watering place" or tavern of the same name to which Norfolk and Princess Anne area sports, satirically referred to by a contemporary as "the Pleasure House crowd," gathered to gamble and drink.

Even so, the long popular watering hole also served during the first two decades of the 19th century as a lookout and vantage point on the Chesapeake Bay from which military observers before and throughout the War of 1812 could spy on the hostile activities of the British naval forces in nearby Lynnhaven Bay and off Cape Henry.
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I'd be happy to forward the entire article to you directly!

--Eric

Eric D. M. Johnson
Proprietor
The Village Factsmith Historical Consulting & Research
The Cybernetick Inkwell Web Design & Development
http://www.factsmith.com/
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  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Weiss 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2003 10:01 AM
  Subject: Pleasure House on Lynhaven Bay, 1814


  Can anyone help amplify a reference I have found in affidavits relating to
  the desertion of slaves to the British in the War of 1812? Several deponents
  refer to the burning in late 1813 of a building called the Pleasure House,
  apparently in Princess Anne County and on the beach of Lynhaven Bay:

  [1] "some of the said negroes conducted a detachment from the said [British]
  ships to the Pleasure House belonging to Mr Nimmo, which was burnt by the
  enemy"

  [2] "in the year 1813 . . . the said negros ranaway in the summer or Fall of
  that year, a short time before the building called the pleasure house was
  burnt. That house was on the Bay side. It was stated by some of our people
  who were at the Pleasure house, that  . .  two of the said negros conducted
  the British party along the Beach and marshes to the spot . . "

  [3] "A short time after the said negroes went away a house called the
  Pleasure House on the bay side and occupied by our Militia was taken by a
  party from the British fleet and burnt. It was said by some of our men who
  made their escape that the said British detachment was pilotted by two of
  said negroes"

  [RG76, International Claims, E-190, Case Files, case 282; NARA, College Park
  Maryland,]

  John Weiss
  Independent Scholar, London
  http://homepage.virgin.net/john.weiss/trinidad/trinidad.html

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