Putney Birthplace of Muppet Characters Up for Sale

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Creator of the show Jim Henson worked from studio in house

The three bedroom house on Bendemeer Road is offered at £1,250,000. Picture: River Homes

June 13, 2025

A riverside house in Putney, which used to be the home of Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, has been put up for sale.

He worked from a studio in the property on Bendemeer Road in the mid to late seventies and into the early eighties. The three-bedroom house, which offers views of the Thames, is now up for sale by River Homes for £1.25million.

Jim Henson, who worked with Frank Oz and others on the creation of characters for The Muppets, had started at the University of Maryland in 1955 when he made Kermit from his mother's old green coat and two ping-pong ball halves for eyes while he was a student.

It is believed that many of the characters that were in The Muppet Show Season 1 would have been created in Jim Henson’s studio in New York were he also developed puppets for Sesame Street. However, it was in 1976, the same year the first season was broadcast, that he moved to Putney as the show was being made by a UK production company. It was filmed at ATV Elstree Studios (now BBC Elstree Centre) in Hertfordshire.

Miss Piggy had already appeared in a Muppet Show pilot a few years area but it is possible that characters such as Fozzie Bear, Gonzo the Great, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Statler and Waldorf came to life near Putney Embankment. It seems highly likely that characters that first appeared in later seasons such as Beaker and Rizzo the Rat were Putney born. Jim Henson was living in on Bendemeer Road while he worked on The Great Muppet Caper, which came out in 1981 as well as the early development for The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth

Henson and his team also established the Henson Creature Shop in London in 1979, originally in Hampstead before later moving to Camden and subsequently other locations.

The Bendemeer Road house is owned by 59-year-old John Kingdon who worked as an IT consultant and used it as a studio workplace until converting it back to residential use during the pandemic later, using it temporarily when his family’s main home was being renovated.

He told the Evening Standard that he redesigned the house putting in an open plan kitchen and living room and a bedroom on the ground floor, and two bedrooms, accessed by a glass brick walled staircase.

 

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