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Trippenhuis Review

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Trippenhuis

Address: Kloveniersburgwal 29, Centrum, Amsterdam | Map It

Trip House

Category: Architectural Sites
Location: Old City Center

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Fodor's Review:

As family home to the two Trip brothers, who made their fortune in gun dealing during the 17th-century Golden Age, this noted house's buckshot-gray exterior and various armament motifs—including a mortar-shape chimney—are easily explained. But what's most distinctive about this building is that its Corinthian-columned facade actually hides two symmetrical buildings (note the wall that bisects the middle windows), one for each brother. Be sure to look across the canal to No. 26, the door-wide white building topped with golden sphinxes and the date of 1696, which is known as both the "Little Trip House" and the "House of Mr. Trip's Coachman." The story goes that the coachman remarked that he would be happy with a house as wide as the Trippenhuis door. By way of response, Mr. Trip built just that with the leftover bricks. That may be an urban myth; the Little Trip House is actually much bigger than it looks, and its completion date was long after either brother died.

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