Orvil J. Ayrs House, 320 M.A.C. Ave. (1915)

O. J. Ayrs House, November 2003. Photo Credit: Kevin S. Forsyth.

Orvil James Ayrs (1882–1964) was a local developer, an Alderman (council member) of the City during the 1920s and a board member of the East Lansing State Bank. He served as Grand Master of the nearby Masonic Lodge in 1938. Ayrs was a “master carpenter and plumber and worked personally on every house built under his name. These houses were—and are—all wood frame, modest by today’s standards, but fine family houses with oak flooring, tall gables, and clapboard or shingle siding. In the late 1920s the claim was made that O. J. Ayrs had built half of the young city.”[Kestenbaum, p. 25]

Prior to building this house, Ayrs appears to have lived at 134 Center Street, known to the East Lansing Historic Commission as the Butterfield-Ayers House. Other nearby houses attributed to Ayrs are 406 and 525 M.A.C. Avenue.