This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The living room has a cathedral ceiling with a large, circular chandelier and a fireplace decorated with handpainted tiles.

This 1930s Atlee B. Ayres home has been transformed with a sleek, modern interior that doesn’t compromie its Spanish/Mexican flair.

Ayres’ love of Spanish and Mexican architecture is apparent throughout the house, including the foyer where strikingly large wood beams trace the ceiling, each one bookended by decorative brackets.

The living room has a tall cathedral ceiling with heavy support beams, a large, circular chandelier and a fireplace decorated with handpainted tiles.

Created out of several small spaces, the kitchen has all modern conveniences yet still looks like it was part of the original house.

The kitchen’s cabinets sport custom, turned-metal hardware and a backsplash that mixes colorful tile both new and old.

An illustration in the kitchen shows the home as it appeared at one time.

Urbano complemented the look of the foyer by adding similar ceiling beams in the dining room.

The dining room as seen from the foyer through an arched doorway

A short, windowed hallway connects the living room to the new owner's wing.

Initially, owner Al Silva and designer and builder Lori Urbano planned simply to remodel the existing house. But they soon realized it needed a separate owner’s wing, complete with a bathroom, bedroom and walk-in closet.

The owner’s bathroom blends modern conveniences, such as a doorless walk-in shower while adding to the home’s historic charm.

The owner’s bathroom blends modern conveniences, such as a doorless walk-in shower while adding to the home’s historic charm.

The ceilings in the owner’s suite bathroom ceilings are 10 feet high and the floor is made with antique tile.

Standing at the top of a crest off Canterbury Hill, the house is a handsome mix of classic Spanish/Mexican architecture with a white stucco exterior, a red clay tile roof, arched windows and a Juliet balcony off a second-floor window.

An Austin home builder had only one suggestion when his friend Al Silva was considering buying a 1930s-era Atlee B. Ayres house in Terrell Hills several years ago: knock it down and start from scratch.

The home hadn’t been updated in decades. Beside the linoleum floors and tiny, pink kitchen, it still had single-pane windows and drafty doors.

Worse, it relied on window air conditioning units — painted avocado green, no less — to cool things down. Renovating it, the friend warned, would be very costly.

None of that dissuaded Silva.

On ExpressNews.com: $2.1 million Texas Hill Country home has wine cellar, vineyard

“I love its architecture, the way it flows,” said Silva, a retired food distribution industry executive who lived across the house for years. “It was just one of those feelings you get when you walk in.”

Plus, it was an Atlee B. Ayres house. One of the most influential architects who ever worked in San Antonio, Ayres was involved in more than 500 projects over his 70-year career. These included the Atkinson-McNay House (which now houses the McNay Art Museum), Freeman Coliseum and the Smith-Young Tower (now the Tower Life Building) downtown.

Standing at the top of a crest off Canterbury Hill, the house is a handsome mix of classic Spanish/Mexican architecture with a white stucco exterior, a red clay tile roof, arched windows and a Juliet balcony off a second-floor window.

Rather than raze the house, Silva called in Lori Urbano, owner of San Antonio-based Urbano Design and Build, whose portfolio includes the former firehouse that is now Battalion Restaurant on South Alamo Street and Rebelle in the St. Anthony hotel downtown.

The interior courtyard continues the home's Mexican influence, with herringbone patterned red brick patio, two dining table, a seating area with an outdoor chiminea/fireplace and a whirlpool bath.

Together, Silva and Urbano set out to restore the four-bedroom, 3 ½-bath house to its former glory and beyond. The goal was to preserve and refresh original features, but also modernize the interior with elements that still looked historically appropriate. That entailed enlarging and updating the kitchen and building a completely new owner’s suite.

“We tried to things the way we imagined Ayres would,” Silva said. “Lori told me, ‘You need to become Ayres, Al.’ ”

Silva declined to disclose the budget for the seven-month project, which was completed in November, and would only say that, once they decided to do things the Atlee B. Ayres way, his original estimate doubled.

Ayres’ love of Spanish and Mexican architecture is apparent throughout the house, beginning in the foyer where strikingly large wood beams trace the ceiling, each one bookended by decorative brackets. All original, the beams needed only to be cleaned and restained. Urbano complemented the look by adding similar beams in the dining room located to the left of the foyer.

The kitchen is decorated with dark, raised-panel wood cabinets with custom turned metal hardware, a backsplash mixes colorful tile both new and old,

On the other side of the foyer, the living room remains mostly the same, it’s tall cathedral ceiling and support beams requiring only to be restained and resealed. With a large, circular chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a fireplace decorated with handpainted tiles Urbano found in California, the room has the feel of a Spanish mission.

Initially, Silva and Urbano planned simply to remodel the existing house. But they soon realized that, since there were only three small upstairs bedrooms, they needed to build a new owner’s wing with a separate bathroom, bedroom and walk-in closet.

“Al said, ‘Design something that goes with the house.’ So I did.”

Connected to the living room by a short, windowed hallway that on one side opens to the central courtyard, the bedroom has a 16-foot cathedral ceiling with heavy, custom wood beams and trusses that have the same distressed look as those in the foyer. Large windows on either side let in plenty of natural sunlight.

On ExpressNews.com: In a historic King William mansion renovation, couple tackles much of the labor themselves with new kitchen, resurfaced walls

The bathroom blends modern conveniences, such as a doorless walk-in shower, while adding to the home’s historic charm. The ceilings are 10 feet high and the floor is made with antique tile.

There several other modern upgrades throughout the house. Urbano replaced about 30 original doors — while beautiful, they were warped, cracked and didn’t seal properly — with reproductions. She also replaced 55 single-pane windows that rattled in the wind with more energy-efficient double-pane glass and took the detailed light fixture hanging outside the front door and had several new ones made that replicated it exactly. These now hang in the courtyard.

The kitchen was another big job. The room had been divided into several small spaces, so she removed the walls and pushed the space out about 8 feet to create a large, modern kitchen that still looks original.

Rather than install contemporary cabinets and appliances in bright whites and gleaming stainless steel, she instead used dark, raised-panel wood cabinets with custom turned metal hardware, a backsplash that mixes colorful tile both new and old and a huge, 8-by-5-foot island topped with quartzite stone in creamy tones held up by traditional carved posts.

Urbano had replicas made of one of the two surviving outdoor light fixtures. These now hang in the courtyard.

“I wanted the room to be warm and to tie in with the rest of the house,” she said. “I wanted everything to flow together.”

The courtyard Urbano designed continues the Mexican influence, with herringbone patterned red brick patio, two dining tables and a seating area with an outdoor chiminea/fireplace. Then there’s the central whirlpool bath.

“I love the raised fountain Ayres designed for the central courtyard at the McNay,” Silva said. “So I told Lori I wanted something like that — only I wanted it to be a Jacuzzi instead.”

Historically appropriate with a modern twist, just like the rest of the house.

rmarini@express-news.net | Twitter: @RichardMarini

Richard A. Marini is a features reporter for the San Antonio Express-News where he's previously been an editor and columnist. The Association of Food Journalists once awarded him Best Food Columnist. He has freelanced for American Archaeology, Cooking Light and many other publications. Reader's Digest once sent him to Alaska for a week. He came back.