Fodor's Expert Review Trippenhuis

As family home to the two Trip brothers, who made their fortune in the arms trade during the 17th-century Golden Age, this noted house's buckshot-gray exterior and various armament motifs—including mortar-shaped chimneys—designed by Justus Vingboons, are easily explained. But the Corinthian-columned facade actually covers two symmetrical buildings (the dividing wall is positioned behind the middle windows), one for each brother, making it the widest residence (at 72 feet) in Amsterdam. From 1817 to 1885 it housed the national museum or Rijksmuseum and is now the home of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Be sure to look across the canal to No. 26, the white building topped with golden sphinxes and dated 1696, which is known as the "Little Trip House." The story goes that Mr. Trip's coachman remarked that he would be happy with a house as wide as the Trippenhuis door. By way of response, Mr. Trip is alleged to have built just that with the leftover bricks. In reality, the domicile was constructed six decades after the Trip mansion, after both of the brothers had already died, possibly as a way to squeeze a house into an existing alleyway. There are a few other very narrow houses in Amsterdam, too: the narrowest rear gable is at Singel 7 at only 3 feet wide, and the building on Oude Hoogstraat 22 is only 7 feet wide and 19 feet deep.