It was named in 1995 for Carol K. and Carl Howard Pforzheimer Jr, major University and Radcliffe College benefactors, and their family.

Located in the Radcliffe Quadrangle, Pforzheimer House comprises Ada Louise Comstock, Daniel Henry Holmes, Mary Buckminster Moors, and Wolbach Halls, in addition to Faculty Row and the Jordan North and South buildings.

Radcliffe College students first took up residence on campus in 1901, and the oldest parts of Pforzheimer House date to that year.

The Jordans, two separate buildings located at the corner of Walker and Shepard Streets, began as an experiment in cooperative living in 1961.

Accordingly, when plans were drawn up for a major renovation in the mid-1980s, the Hastings rejected an early proposal that would have segmented the house into disconnected vertical "entryways", opting instead for a plan that connected "the bricks" to one another more closely and in the process allowed the construction of the Holmes junior common room, the house grille, the Comstock Library, and the centralized balconied dining hall.

Renovations to Wolbach were done in order to increase the number of students housed in the dorm and to provide suites on campus accessible and appropriate to disabled persons.

The letters f or ph were replaced by pF in House-related words, hence Pformal, PfoHo Pfora, and Pfreshman Welcome.

[6] In October 1999, Adams House began enforcing a long-standing policy of closing its dining hall to non-residents during peak hours.

Since Adams House is located closest to the main class buildings at Harvard Yard, their dining hall is often crowded, and residents unable to find a seat.

The initial suggestion was raised by senior Colin Wood, and formally proposed by Jessamyn Conrad, and seconded by sophomore Kyle Gilman.

Adams House gained the element of surprise when students blanketed "O-Ho" with the Declaration of War overnight.

The next day, when Pforzheimer students awoke, they discovered that every "Pf" in their dormitory had been "stolen" (covered with masking tape).

[7] Students from Pforzheimer House (Andy and Aric) made a bold, daytime raid, stealing the gong and closing the gates leading to the Adams dining hall with a bike lock at lunch hour one day, creating chaos.

Adams residents, including both Masters, took to reading the declaration of war over the "Orzheimer" call boxes during lunch and dinner.

The committee operates separately from the Harvard Undergraduate Council, to organize student events and manage funding.

A second, longer ladder leads via a small hatch to the lantern of the tower called the "crow's nest".

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is rumored to have met his wife, Priscilla Chan, at a party in Pforzheimer's Bell Tower Suite while they were both undergraduates at Harvard College.