Wooden house Zeedijk 1 (In 't Aepjen)

A timber front on a brick street

Look up at the corner where the Zeedijk begins and you will see something Amsterdam mostly got rid of: a house with a wooden front. This is Zeedijk 1, known as In 't Aepjen, "In the Little Monkeys". It is one of only two wooden houses left in the old centre. The other is the Houten Huys inside the Begijnhof, about a fifteen-minute walk away.

It takes five minutes to see and costs nothing. The reason to come is the contrast. The street around it is brick and stone. This house is dark timber, and it makes its neighbours look new.

Why wood, and why monkeys

Medieval Amsterdam was built largely of wood, and it burned. After repeated fires the city began to forbid timber fronts and pushed owners towards brick and stone. Over the following centuries most wooden houses were pulled down or rebuilt. A few survived. This one dates from the 16th century, and it is still standing because nobody replaced it.

The name comes from a story. The Zeedijk was a sailors' street, close to the old harbour. Sailors came home from long voyages with animals from far away, monkeys among them. The tale goes that some of them, short of money, paid their bills at the inn with a monkey. Nobody can prove it, and it is better told than checked. Whatever the truth, the name stuck. Today the house is a bar, which suits it.

What to look for

Stand across the street and look at the whole front at once. Compare the dark, weathered wood with the brick gables beside it. The upper floors do not look perfectly straight, and that is part of the charm.

Then look at how the timber frames the windows, and set that against the stone fronts further along the Zeedijk. You are looking at a way of building the city once took for granted and then spent centuries abandoning.

The house also helps you read the street. For a long time this was where sailors landed, drank and slept. Now the same street has Chinese bakeries and a Buddhist temple. The wooden front is one of the few things here that has barely changed.

Step back carefully. The pavement is narrow and bikes come past quickly.