Built between 1903-06, the building at Paulinenstrasse 7 was modeled on the White House in Washington D.C., which was built in 1792. The French classicism of the Petit Trianon in Versailles influenced the architecture of the Villa Söhnlein-Pabst as well as that of the White House in Washington.

The builder was the German-American entrepreneurial couple Friedrich Wilhelm Söhnlein and his wife Emma, née Pabst, co-heiress of the American Pabst brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1903, they purchased one of the last "filet plots" near the new Kurhaus (1905-07), which was currently under construction, for 400,000 gold marks. The stately detached house for four people and eleven servants, including the gardens, cost 2.4 million gold marks from the Siesmayer brothers, Frankfurt am Main.

The Swiss architects of the villa, Otto Wilhelm Pfleghard and Max Haefeli, had worked for the Wiesbaden architectural office of Alfred Schellenberg, among others, before they became active in urban planning in Zurich, and therefore also built for the Söhnlein sparkling wine cellars in Schierstein (Grundweinkellerei ensemble, 1895). The bourgeois, magnificent Wiesbaden version of the Petit Trianon took up the Louis-Seize style of the original (including interior and exterior decorations, furnishings), but was also influenced by elements of the English country house, Rococo, Baroque and Empire.

The Villa Söhnlein-Pabst reflects cosmopolitan Wilhelminianism, the economic history of the city and its political history like hardly any other villa in Wiesbaden. Initially used as a business villa from 1906-38, the house was rented out to the police administration in 1940. In 1944, the NS-Volkswohlfahrt (NSV) bought the building and it served as accommodation for German military services. In 1945, the building complex was occupied by American troops and was then converted into a US military office and finally into a community center for American troops in Wiesbaden. In 1954, the Eagle Club moved from the Kurhaus to the Villa Söhnlein-Pabst.

The careful renovations and extensions to Villa Söhnlein-Pabst were carried out by the architect Paul Schaeffer-Heyrothsberghe. During this American period, the villa was given the name "White House". In 1996, the house and grounds were returned to the state of Hesse by the US government and from 2006 the 7,000^m2 site was redeveloped and partially built on.

The Villa Söhnlein-Pabst, which is now a listed building, was renovated between 2006-09 and now serves as a residential building. An adjoining café on the first floor in the former state rooms was closed in 2010 and can now only be rented for events.