Suykerhoff Hofje (also spelled Suykerhofje or Suyckerhofje) is a seventeenth-century almshouse courtyard at Lindengracht 149–163 in Amsterdam’s Jordaan. It was founded under the 1667 will of merchant Pieter Jansz Suykerhoff and built around 1670. Today it is a private residential courtyard with 15 homes and no published visitor hours.
A seventeenth-century residential courtyard
Suykerhoff Hofje stands at Lindengracht 149–163. Amsterdam City Archives records that it was built around 1670 using funds left by Amsterdam merchant Pieter Jansz Suykerhoff in his will of 4 January 1667. Some local histories describe him as a sugar baker as well as a merchant.
A gateway and a long passage lead in from the street. Behind them, two wings of houses form an L-shape around a courtyard garden with a water pump. The complex is a national monument (Rijksmonument 3549). The register lists it as the “Hofjen Pieter-Jansz Suyckerhoff”: two wings of two-storey homes with paired windows on the upper floor, dated 1678 in the register entry.
Who the hofje was built for
Suykerhoff’s will directed that his estate be used to build and maintain a hofje, a charitable almshouse courtyard, for older unmarried Protestant women and widows. According to local histories, applicants had to be women of honest, irreproachable conduct with a “peaceable temper”. Residents lived rent-free and received allowances such as fuel and food. In return, they followed a detailed set of house rules and were expected to help one another.
History and present use
The courtyard originally contained 19 homes. It declined badly in the nineteenth century, and by 1975 only two elderly women still lived in the last habitable house in the west wing. After restoration and the combination of several small dwellings in the 1980s, it has 15 homes. It is still inhabited.
A gable stone above the entrance, added during the late-twentieth-century restoration, shows the founder’s correct name. You can see the courtyard and its pump in archive photographs held by Amsterdam City Archives.
Visiting respectfully
This is a residential place without published visitor hours. Some third-party listings show weekday daytime hours, but these are not official. Treat the gate as closed unless it is clearly open.
- Respect closed access and any posted rules.
- If the gate is open, enter quietly, keep to the paths and stay only briefly.
- Do not photograph residents, doorways or windows into homes.
- Do not bring groups, bicycles or food into the courtyard.
Not the same as the Nieuwe Suykerhofje
The Nieuwe Suykerhofje at Prinsengracht 385–393 is a separate almshouse courtyard. Gerrit ten Sande and Maria de Groot founded it in 1755, and its name was chosen to distinguish it from the older courtyard on Lindengracht. The Lindenhofje at Lindengracht 94–112, dating from 1616, is a different courtyard on the same street.
