The municipality lies on the Kehrbach southeast of the Idarkopf (746 m above sea level) at the edge of the Idar Forest in the Hunsrück.

The ending —hausen (originally —husen) dates the village's founding to the time about the year 1000 when the Franks were settling the land.

In the Late Middle Ages, the village was made up of two centres: Stebeshusen lay on the Kehrbach's left bank and belonged to the high court region of Rhaunen, and over on the other side lay Smer(le)bach, which had its first documentary mention in 1325, and which formed together with the village of Asbach a court region of its own.

Upon the 1515 partition of the Waldgraviate-Rhinegraviate, Smerlebach, which was also known as the court region of Stipshausen, passed to the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves of Kyrburg and thereafter belonged to the Amt of Wildenburg.

After Stipshausen passed to Prussia in 1815 as a result of the Congress of Vienna, it belonged to the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Rhaunen in the Bernkastel district, which in turn was in the Regierungsbezirk of Trier.

In 1334, Johann von Basenheim, Burgmann at the Schmidtburg, and his wife Getza endowed a chapel in Stipshauen.

In 1504, Archbishop of Mainz Berthold split the chapel away from Rhaunen and raised it to parish church with all attendant rights.

After the Reformation had been introduced into Rhaunen in 1560, the parish priest there tended the flock at Stipshausen, preaching this new version of Christianity.

Indeed, in 1714, the subjects asked the Kollator (the holder of the altar benefice), Count Cratz von Scharfenstein, to be tended instead by the priest from Hottenbach.

The Catholics, whose numbers had grown through marriage and migration to 20% of the population, were nonetheless only allowed to use the church for burials.

In Prussian times, Stipshausen's Jewish inhabitants turned to Hottenbach for worship, for it was there in 1796 that a synagogue was built.

The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Per fess Or a monster with a wolf's head and an eagle's body sans talons displayed gules, its breast charged with a cramp sable, and vert a stag's attires fixed to the scalp of the first, between which an oakleaf palewise argent.

The charge above the line of partition is a reference to the village's former allegiance to the Waldgraviate-Rhinegraviate and indeed is the heraldic device once used in the Waldgravial-Rhinegravial court seal at Rhaunen.

[8] The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[9] Since 2000, a sculpture park has been rising in the village, with notable artists helping with its continual expansion.