In 1849 Thomas Goodall erected a blue denim cloth tent to serve as a midway stopover for gold miners headed from San Francisco to the Sierra Nevada foothills via Altamont Pass. Goodall eventually built an adobe house at the eastern edge of the Diablo Range hills, calling it The Mountain House. Simon Zimmerman later acquired the stop and it became known as Zimmerman's Mountain House, and became a well-known way station stop on the way to Stockton. The last remaining settlement buildings were leveled in 1940. In November 1994, the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors officially launched the new community of Mountain House two miles to the northeast along Mountain House Creek.

Mountain House was projected to be a small full-fledged city developed over 30-year period by Trimark Communities. The town was planned for 12 distinct neighborhoods including 10 family neighborhoods and two age-restricted neighborhoods each organized around a center containing a neighborhood park, a K-8 school, and a small commercial area. As of 2018, Mountain House includes the established villages of Altamont, Bethany, Wicklund, Questa, Hansen and the developing sixth village of Cordes.