Atlee Ayres

Atlee B. Ayres (1873-1969) was a major regional architect of the early to mid-20th century in central Texas. Atlee Bernard Ayres, was born in Hillsboro, Ohio, on July 12, 1873, the son of Nathan Tandy and Mary Parsons Ayres. The family moved to Texas, lived first in Houston, and then moved in 1888 to San Antonio, where Nathan Ayres for many years managed the Alamo Flats, a luxury apartment hotel. In 1890 Ayres went to New York to study at the Metropolitan School of Architecture, a subsidiary of Columbia University. There he won first prize in the school's annual design competition. His teachers included William Ware, a student of Richard Morris Hunt. Ayres took drawing lessons at the Art Students League at night and also studied painting under Frank Vincent Dumont. Upon his graduation in 1894 he returned to San Antonio and worked for various architects. He subsequently moved to Mexico, where he practiced until 1900. That year he moved back to San Antonio and began a partnership with Charles A. Coughlin that lasted until Coughlin's death in 1905. Early in his career in San Antonio, Ayres designed the Halff house (1908) and a villa for Col. George W. Brackenridge (date unknown) that was later was torn down

In 1915 Ayres was made the state architect of Texas, and in 1924, he created a new partnership with his son, Robert M. Ayres. Many of the firm's works are found throughout San Antonio and the surrounding area designed in the tradition of Spanish Colonial Revival style architecture including the Hogg house (1924), the Mannen house (1926), the Newton house (1927), and the Atkinson house (1928) which is now known as the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum. The firm was also adept in using other revival modes, including the Colonial Revival of the H. Lutcher Brown residence (1936) and the English Tudor of the Jesse Oppenheimer residence (1924).

Other commissions include the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Texas State Office Building, and both the Carothers Dormitory and the original Pharmacy Building at the University of Texas at Austin. Ayres drew plans for courthouses in Kingsville, Alice, Refugio, Del Rio, and Brownsville and designed the thirty-story Smith-Young Tower (1929), the Plaza Hotel (1927), and the Federal Reserve Bank Building (1928) . His firm helped design the exterior of the San Antonio Municipal Auditorium (1923) and the Administration Building at Randolph Air Force Base (1931), often referred to as the "Taj Mahal," and remodeled the historic Menger Hotel (1949-53).

Ayres was the author of "Mexican Architecture" (1926) and often made trips to Mexico to gain further inspiration. He was a charter member of the Texas Society of Architects and was one of a group of architects instrumental in securing passage of state legislation in 1937 for the licensing of architects to practice. He married Olive Moss Cox in San Antonio in 1896, and the couple had two sons. After Mrs. Ayres's death in 1937, he married Katherine Cox, in 1940. Ayres was still practicing architecture when he died at the age of ninety-six on November 6, 1969, in San Antonio. He was buried in Mission Burial Park in San Antonio.

References

Carson, Chris & McDonald, William ,eds., "A Guide to San Antonio Architecture". San Antonio Chapter, American Institute of Architects, 1986. ISBN 0961684208 9780961684204.

Stephanie Hetos Cocke, "Atlee B. and Robert M. Ayres," Texas Architect, November-December 1989.