Herengracht 81

The house at Herengracht eighty-one carries a jagged, stepped gable that rises sharply above the canal water. Built in sixteen forty-two, it served as the home and office for a merchant family during the height of the Dutch Golden Age. In the nineteenth century, the property became the headquarters for a massive shipping company. The staff once managed fleets of merchant vessels from these rooms, keeping trade ledgers that tracked goods traveling between Amsterdam and the far reaches of the Dutch East Indies.