Ebbitt House was located at the southeast corner of F Street NW and 14th Street NW in the city of Washington, D.C., in the United States. Several structures built between 1800 and 1836 were united into a single structure by William J. Smith some time between 1832 and 1856. The new structure was named "Frenchman's Hotel." In 1856, William E. Ebbitt purchased Frenchman's Hotel from Smith, turned it into a boarding house, and renamed it Ebbitt House.

On September 1, 1863, Ebbitt sold the boarding house to his son-in-law, Albert H. Craney. Exactly a year later, Craney sold the property to Caleb C. Willard, brother of Willard Hotel owner Henry A. Willard. Caleb Willard converted the boarding house into a hotel. The same year, Willard purchased Bushrod Reed's property (a grocery store and home) on the corner. He joined the Ebbitt and Reed properties into a single unit, enclosing a 4-foot (1.2 m) wide alley between the two and built bathrooms (with oval windows) in the space above the former alley.

To the right of Ebbitt House is "Newspapeer Row." The three-story home on 14th Street adjacent to (in this image, to the right of) Ebbitt House was occupied by the Reed family as well, although by 1864 it had been purchased by Willard and the roof raised. At that time it was not part of the hotel yet, and Willard leased it to the New York Times newspaper for office space. Two single-story buildings south of the Reed home were also built and owned by Reed, and by 1865 used by the Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Evening Post, and other newspapers for reporters' officers. Next to the one-story homes was Farnham House. Originally owned and built by David Burns (whose plantation formed much of the downtown area that would become Washington, D.C.), Burns gave the house to his daughter Marcia, who in turn sold it to William H. Dorsey in 1802. On May 16, 1818, Dorsey sold the house to William Blanchard. Blanchard's daughter, Jane Farnham, inherited the property on June 10, 1850, after his death. By 1865, it housed the D.C. offices of the New York Herald. The large number of newspapers with offices all along 14th Street between E and F Streets garnered the area the nickname "Newspaper Row," a name it would hold into the 1930s. Farnham sold her house at auction to Caleb Willard on October 4, 1866, for $74,000.