An elite New York club, a boardroom battle and a £10m Soho property: How a plan to save a London charity hit the rocks

The building is hard to miss. Prominently placed on one corner of Soho Square, number 1 Greek Street is also referred to by the name in the big, tiled letters on its frontage: the House of Charity. 

The Grade I listed building has been a base for charitable work since at least 1861, serving as a hostel for women and, more recently, as a private members’ club with a social mission called the House of St Barnabas.

But for months now, it has been closed up, with a security firm keeping it under lock and key.

I visited on Friday afternoon, and the shutters were closed on the ground floor but the lights were on in a basement kitchen, and a chandelier was illuminated upstairs. A notice taped to the door announced that security was on site. 

Rapping the door with the lion’s head knocker summoned first one security guard and then a second, who said they work for Mitmark, a security and intelligence company founded by army veterans. When I asked them which client they were securing the building for, they said they didn’t have that information. “We’re asked not to let anyone into the building, and that’s what we’re doing,” one said.

The closure of the House of St Barnabas club in 2024 darkened the prospects of its charity work and the building itself, until a seemingly miraculous offer came through. The Explorers Club of New York, which counts Jeff Bezos and Buzz Aldrin among its members, was looking for a London home. The club could reopen as an Explorers outpost, while the charity work could start up again.

That was announced in February of this year. Since then, relations between The Explorers Club HQ and the Brits driving the London project have fractured, resulting in a standoff over the building, allegations of hacking and the involvement of the charities regulator.

It may get thornier still, with a private criminal prosecution potentially on the cards.