Jim Henson by Brian Jay Jones

Author:Brian Jay Jones
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2013-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

With four episodes still to be completed for The Muppet Show’s third season in late 1978, Jim opted to spend the holidays back in the United States, throwing a Christmas party for the Muppet crew at the posh Player’s Club in Manhattan, performing with Joe Raposo at a White House children’s party, then skiing for several days in Vermont before heading back to London with Jane and Lisa just after the first of the year. During the previous fall, Jim had moved out of the flat in Frognal Gardens and was looking for a more permanent residence in the Hampstead area. In the meantime, at the urging of actor James Coburn, who had made a cameo appearance in The Muppet Movie, Jim moved into a house in Holly Village—a “darling little castle,” Jane called it—owned by Coburn and girlfriend Lynsey de Paul. The Hensons stayed only long enough for Jim to wrap up the four remaining Muppet Show episodes—but before leaving in early February, he and Jane scouted several nearby properties as potential homes, eventually submitting a contract for a Victorian-era place in Church Row. To Jim’s disappointment and slight confusion, he would lose the house to another bidder at the last minute, but vowed to keep looking.

Back in New York, however, Jim had successfully sealed the deal on a new headquarters for Henson Associates, a beautiful 1929 double townhouse at 117 East 69th Street in Manhattan. Jim had purchased the five-story building for $600,000 in November 1978, but zoning issues had slowed the renovation of the space for several months. For one thing, Jim wanted to substantially reconfigure the basement and first floor to create a spacious, bi-level Muppet workshop, with several skylights letting natural light into what would normally have been an underground area. “I want to have a place for a creative nucleus,” wrote Jim—and once the zoning issues for such an ambitious remodeling were cleared, no detail was too small for Jim to lavish with care and attention. Colorful photo murals were installed in waiting areas and on landings. The Henson Associates logo—a large, lowercase HA, with an exclamation point at the end—was inlaid in brass into the marble floor of the main hall. Furniture was handcrafted, drapes were made from tie-dyed canvas or Chinese silks, and walls were painted in bright reds or warm beiges, with gold-toned trim and molding. It was a place as sprawling as Jim, as quirky as his sense of humor, and as colorful as one of his printed shirts. “I didn’t want a pretentious space or one with a feeling of opulence,” said Jim. “Instead, I wanted a happy, functioning space with character and warmth.”

For many, though, the most memorable feature was the gleaming spiral staircase that ran up through the center of the townhouse, circling toward a large stained-glass skylight dubbed “The View from the Lily Pad,” meant to reflect what Kermit might see peering up through the trees from the swamp. The staircase was both the spine and

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