KLEINE TRIPPENHUIS

Monumental Home of Webers Holland

The “Kleine Trippenhuis”(Small Trip-house) is famous because of a legend. In the 17th century 2 brothers, Lodewijk and Hendrik Trip, who were very wealthy arms merchants, built a grand canal-house for themselves on the Kloveniersburgwal. It was the largest house at that time. According to the legend one of the brothers heard a servant say he wished he had a house as wide as their front-door. Then the eccentric Trip brother built the Small Trip-house for the lucky servant on the other side of the canal. A nice story, but not true, because the big house was completed in 1662, the small house in 1696. The brothers were already dead by then.

Fact is the small house has an elaborate sandstone front in classical style. The top has statues of 2 bare-breasted female sphinxes, reliefs of grapes, sunflowers and a sand-glass. It is one of the narrowest canal-houses in Amsterdam (2.44 meters wide). But in the back it widens out behind the neighbouring house to about 6 metres. It was probably built in an alleyway between 2 existing houses. In the 19th century the wooden shopfront was added. Older residents of the neighbourhood remember it as a candy-shop. The Kleine Trippenhuis is mentioned in every tourist guide and every day tourist guides come by and tell the story about the lucky servant.