Wide double mansions with carved stone doorcases and stoops line a straight tree lined quay on the Golden Bend.
What Herengracht looks like
The Golden Bend runs between Leidsestraat and Vijzelstraat. Here the houses sit on double width plots, broader than the single lot fronts on the rest of the ring, behind a straight quay with a single row of parked cars and moored boats. Trees break the line of facades at intervals along the water.
At 450, the is pale banded stone from 1663, its door set under a bracketed stone balcony and reached by a raised stone stoop. Two doors along at 475, the 1731 front of the has a scrolled stone doorcase with carved figures on either side of the door. A flagpole rises above its roofline.
Other fronts along the bend are dark brick under a stepped or neck gable, or pale stone topped with a cornice set with a carved coat of arms and urns. Ground floor windows sit behind iron grilles above a raised basement, and brass plaques for banks and legal offices have replaced plain house numbers at several doors.
At 493 and 497 the lower floors sit behind street trees that screen part of the view from the water. Both are reached by a short run of stone steps behind black iron railings. The service road between the houses and the canal is cobbled, wide enough for one row of parked cars along the full stretch.
Shot in Herengracht
For Ocean's Twelve, the production used the building as the home of a fictional art collector in the film's robbery plot. The same sequence also used a rooftop across the canal at 476.
Ocean's Twelve, 2004
KattenKabinet
Played the Van der Woude house, Amsterdam, present day
Isabel arrives at the house of the fictional collector Van der Woude to investigate a robbery. A companion shot used the roof of the building across the canal at 476 as part of the same sequence.
Lange Voorhout lines a wide avenue with grand eighteenth century stone and brick mansions under tall trees, several of them now embassies or institutions behind their original fronts. Office plaques beside private doors give it the same mixed use as the bend itself. The avenue runs wider and the trees stand taller, so a tight shot on one front holds the match better than a view down the street. Try searching grand avenue mansion front now.
Merrion Square in Dublin, Ireland
The south side of Merrion Square is a uniform Georgian run of brick terraced mansions completed by 1791, with fanlights and doorcases doing the individual work that carved stone does on the bend. Several of its houses now have office plaques of their own. Flemish bond brick and granite steps read flatter and redder than the pale stone fronts here, and the fanlights are a different shape from a Dutch doorcase. Try searching Georgian brick terraced mansions now.
Belgrave Square in London, England
Belgrave Square is a run of wide white stuccoed terraces built from the 1820s, with a larger corner mansion at intervals along each side. The uniform cornice line and the scale of the fronts are close to the bend's own. The stucco reads brighter and flatter than carved stone, and the square's garden in the middle has no equivalent on the quay here. Try searching white stuccoed terraces square now.
