The Estufa was built in 1907–08 by the local social fraternity Alpha Alpha Alpha, previously known as the Yum Yum Society. The project received support from university president William G. Tight, who was interested in strengthening the Greek system on campus. At the same time, Tight had been working to promote Pueblo Revival architecture at the university and had already overseen construction of two new dormitories and a boiler plant in the Pueblo style. Under this influence, the Tri-Alphas built their meeting room in the form of a kiva or "estufa," a traditional feature of Pueblo architecture. Ground was broken on the project in January 1907, though the work evidently proceeded slowly and it was not finished until April 1908. The U.N.M. Weeklystudent newspaper reported that month that The Tri-Alphas held their first meeting in the Estufa on February 20, 1908, while the building was still unfinished. In 1915, Alpha Alpha Alpha became the Beta Delta chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha, the university's first national fraternity, and the Estufa has continued to serve as the chapter's primary meeting location for nearly 100 years. During its long history as a fraternity council room, the Estufa has been involved in numerous pranks and has been broken into or vandalized many times, often by the rival Sigma Chi fraternity. The building is accessible only to members of Pi Kappa Alpha, and according to fraternity lore no woman has ever seen its interior. The Estufa has survived both accidental and intentional vehicular collisions as well as "attempts to destroy it with fire, dynamite, water and other weapons" according to an Albuquerque Journal article from 1952. In 1947 alone, the building was set on fire four times. It was also damaged by an accidental gas explosion in 1958 that left five people injured. In the 1960s, the building seemed doomed by a University Boulevard widening project, but city planners ultimately chose a road alignment further to the west that kept the Estufa out of harm's way. It was added to the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties and the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
Architecture
The Estufa is an elliptical, one-story building loosely modeled after a kiva at Santo Domingo Pueblo. As such, it was one of the earliest expressions of the Pueblo Revival style in New Mexico, and is the oldest surviving example at UNM. The walls are adobe and are approximately thick. The building was originally accessed via an external staircase and roof trapdoor, but this arrangement has since been replaced by a more conventional door. The interior of the Estufa contains a single windowless room, approximately in area, which has been described as a pit with seating around the edge. Despite the prevalence of Pueblo style architecture at UNM, the Estufa is one of only two buildings on campus actually made out of adobe. The other is the Naval Science Building designed by John Gaw Meem.
