Planning granted for former Beatles premises

 

Specialist investor and developer The Malins Group has been granted planning permission to convert the iconic original headquarters of The Beatles’ record company, Apple Corps, at 94 Baker Street, in London’s West End, into five apartments.
The luxury residential developer paid £6m for the six-storey, Grade II listed period building last year and has secured permission from Westminster City Council for a change of use to residential on the upper floors of the building, with retail at street and lower ground level.
Lauren Atkins, MD of The Malins Group, said: “94 Baker Street is destined to become one of the capital’s most famous residential addresses. The building has a unique place in the history of The Beatles and we aim to preserve its fascinating heritage. We will be launching sales of the apartments on the 45th anniversary of the closure of the Apple Boutique and move of Apple Corps and the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Beatles.
“We have some great plans for the interiors – exuberant, imaginative, with a few avant-garde touches – to capture the spirit of the Fab Four.”
As well as the base for The Beatles record empire in the late 1960s, the Apple Boutique was opened at street level selling clothes and accessories. The aim of the shop was, according to Paul McCartney, to create “a beautiful place where beautiful people can buy beautiful things”.
A psychedelic-style mural was commissioned and painted over the Georgian building by art students but planning permission had not been sought and the artwork was ordered to be covered in white paint to satisfy Westminster Council and the landlord, the Portman Estate.
Beatles guitarist the late George Harrison, in an interview conducted for The Beatles’ Anthology, said: “If they’d protected it and the painted wall was there now, they would be saying, ‘Wow, look at this. We’ve got to stop it chipping off’. But that’s just typical of the narrow minds we were trying to fight against.”
The Apple Boutique failed to make money and the decision was taken to close it. The night before the closure, The Beatles, their wives and girlfriends came to take what they wanted.
When the Beatles partnership was finally dissolved in 1975 – the band having split five years earlier – dissolution of Apple Corps was also considered, but it was decided to keep it going, while effectively retiring all its divisions.
The company is currently headquartered at 27 Ovington Square, in Knightsbridge and ownership and control of the company remains with McCartney, Starr and the estates of Lennon and Harrison. The 8,390 sq ft building stands on the corner of Baker Street and Paddington Street and close to the boutiques and restaurants in Marylebone village, between Paddington and Oxford Street.

Source: http://www.link2portal.com