In one of the most extensive mesa-top pueblos in the park, the Anasazi used stone tools to hammer rocks into smooth, curved, or straight walls. Attached apartments rising as high as three stories are held together with mortar strengthened by rock and potsherds, making this an especially fine example of masonry construction. Several thousand tons of rock and timber were brought in by people who did not use wheels. Far View House itself is a large, rectangular pueblo consisting of some forty ground-floor rooms and five kivas. Many of the kivas and pueblos here are more akin in construction and layout to those in Chaco Canyon National Monument in New Mexico than to other villages at Mesa Verde. Nearby is a large circular depression known as Mummy Lake, perhaps a prehistoric reservoir for this large village.
Jesse W. Fewkes, an archaeologist from the Smithsonian, began excavation and stabilization of the Far View group in 1916. Fewkes reinforced walls, rebuilt some of them, and capped many with cement, believing that “unless the walls are protected they will fall in a few years into piles of stone.” Later the National Park Service abandoned this policy of reconstruction in favor of a stricter preservation policy.