WHEN BEN CROSS TELLS PEOPLE HE WORKED ON the redevelopment of the Heal’s Building, they react in one of two ways. “The first is, ‘Oh wow, that building!’” he says. “The second is: ‘So you’ve kicked Heal’s out?’”
Londoners, says the director of development at General Projects, are sentimental about the early-twentieth-century Tottenham Court Road store, with its Portland stone, stripped-classical facade, its blue-and-gold plaques featuring illustrations of furnishing delights such as four-poster beds, and its tall, slim windows with delicate framing like lace.
But they also assume the building’s redevelopment means an inevitable eviction for the 200-year-old furniture retailer and atelier from its Grade II*-listed flagship showrooms — what Cross calls “probably the best building in the West End” [1] — which it has occupied since 1916 and which still bears its founder’s name “Heal & Son” debossed in fine, gilt lettering on its fabric.
But Heal’s is staying, despite the building’s acquisition in
