[2][3] Constructed in a traditional Moroccan style, with numerous "riads", or garden courtyards,[2][3] the property extends to some 5000 square metres, and is situated on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic shore.

The fifteenth-century Portuguese explorer Duarte Pacheco Pereira wrote about a white structure on a promontory used by mariners as a landmark to pinpoint Anfa, the old name for the city.

[6][7] When Anfa was rebuilt after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake by Mohammed III in the late eighteenth century, "the white house" – in reference to Dar Khalifa, which by this time had become a Sufi zawiya – became the preferred name for the city both in Arabic (ad-Dār al-Bayḍā) and for Europeans (Casablanca).

In 2022, work began on renovating Dar Khalifa to turn it into the headquarters of The Scheherazade Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to folklore and teaching stories – "tales that contain ancient wisdom".

[7] According to Jason Webster, writing in the Financial Times, Tahir Shah "hired artisans and craftsmen from across Morocco to work on fabulous zellij fountains, stucco screens with geometric Islamic designs, and intricately carved wooden Berber doorways.