Nicknamed the Germantown Whitehouse, the Deshler-Morris House is the oldest surviving presidential residence. The original structure was built in 1752 by George and Anna Bringhurst. Twenty years later they added a three-story, nine-room addition to the front of the structure, creating the current façade. Following Deshler’s death in 1792, Isaac Franks, a former colonel in the Continental Army purchased the home. It was Franks who rented the home to newly elected President George Washington from 1790 to 1797. John Adams occupied it from 1797-1800. The home was eventually owned by the Morris family who donated it to the National Park Service in 1948.

The neighboring structure, The Bringhurst House, is contemporaneous to the Deshler-Morris House. It was owned by John Bringhurst, a carriage builder and the inventor of the Germantown Wagon. In 1780 he built a carriage for Washington.