1873 — 1969

In 1924 Ayres formed a partnership with his son, Robert M. Ayres. During the 1920s and 1930s Atlee B. and Robert M. Ayres, as the firm was called, designed numerous residences in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, among them the Hogg house (1924), the Mannen house (1926), the Newton house (1927), and the Atkinson house (1928, now 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).

In 1915 Ayres was state architect of Texas, a position that allowed him to design the Blind Institute (now the Texas School for the Blind), the Texas State Office Building, and other important public buildings. On the University of Texas campus he designed Carothers Dormitory and the original Pharmacy Building. He drew plans for courthouses in Kingsville, Alice, Refugio, Del Rio, and Brownsville. In San Antonio his firm helped design the exterior of the Municipal Auditorium (1923) and the Administration Building at Randolph Air Force Base (1931), known as the "Taj Mahal," with a tower that conceals a 500,000-gallon water tank. It also designed the thirty-story Smith-Young Tower (1929), the Plaza Hotel (1927), and the Federal Reserve Bank Building (1928) and remodeled the Menger Hotel (1949–53).(Texas State Historical Association)

The Homes