Kiva-like and windowless, the small adobe Estufa sits tucked on the University of New Mexico campus, close enough for you to touch. Built in 1907–08 by the local social fraternity Alpha Alpha Alpha, previously known as the Yum Yum Society, this little building has been the primary meeting location of the university’s Pi Kappa Alpha chapter since 1915. Its history is steeped in fraternity lore and, by that lore, supposedly no woman has ever seen its interior.
Modeled after a kiva — the ceremonial meeting place used by the Pueblo people — the Estufa has thick adobe walls and contains a single windowless room with seating around the edges. University president William G. Tight guided its construction and promoted the use of Pueblo Revival architecture on campus, and the Estufa was one of the first buildings in New Mexico to employ that style. The word estufa itself, from Webster’s definition, points to an assembly room in a dwelling of the Pueblo Indians — a stove or warm room, a place for gathering.
The building’s protected status on both the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties and the National Register of Historic Places marks its significance. A single windowless room waits behind those thick adobe walls, and by fraternity lore no woman has ever seen it.