Hearsay Market Square

We at Hearsay Gastro Lounge are pleased to be in the midst of Houston history in this great building. The W. L. Foley Building, the second building on the block designed by prolific Texas courthouse architect Eugene T. Heiner was buit in 1889. Much of the credit for the updated design of this great building goes to former owner Lee Benner. The venue features two stories of wood, brick, and mirror walls that light up with vibrant colors at night. The W.L. Foley building, also known as the Kennedy-Foley building, was built in 1860. John Kennedy was a local Bakery Owner who opened the building for his store. The U.S. Civil War loomed in the midst, and fate had other plans for the building. The building was used as a Confederate armory, filled with guns and explosives. At the end of the war, the building was raided and many live explosives were spilled and left inside the building. As a result, Kennedy hired men and teams of horses to flood the building, drawing water from the bakery’s cistern. The building was partially burned in 1888. Once the building was in the hands of Dr. Lucky Chopra from Landmark Hospitality, the Chandelier was installed and the lighting was updated. Eugene T. Heiner’s unique building design features alternating colors in the arches and angles, resulting in contrasts of depth, color, and shape. The W.L. Foley building is built in a similar classical revival style that Heiner used for the Cotton Exchange building, but instead it has lighter colored brick. Houston architecture in the 19th and 20th century typically featured cast-iron columns supporting a canopy lining the front of the building, which is found on the Kennedy-Foley building. The Post-Benner Bar-Back wall was designed to reflect the hanging bulbs of varying lengths, each one glistening like a firefly.