EAST AURORA, N.Y. -- When a young Darwin Martin joined the Larkin Soap Co. as a bookkeeper, his mentor soon became Larkin sales partner Elbert Hubbard. But Hubbard had in mind a different sort of life, and when he left to pursue it in 1892, his departure created an opening that led to Martin's rise to second in command.

Mr. Hubbard's dream, fed by an 1894 trip to England to visit William Morris, was the creation of a utopian artists' colony, and in 1895 he established it in East Aurora, about 15 miles southeast of Buffalo. By 1910, Mr. Hubbard had more than 500 "Roycrofters" producing Arts and Crafts-style furniture, metalware, leather-bound books, magazines and other products in rustic buildings that echo medieval England. The charismatic Mr. Hubbard and his wife, Alice, traveling to England in 1915 for a lecture tour, died in the sinking of the Lusitania. The colony continued under his son's direction until 1938.

"This is the only authentic Arts and Crafts campus in the world, and when people come they are disappointed," said Christine Peters, director of the nonprofit Roycroft Campus Corp. "They say, 'Where are the artists?' And they can't get into the buildings because they are individually owned."

Artists do come to Roycroft from around the country to teach classes throughout the year. And of the 14 surviving buildings on the compact Roycroft campus, several are open to the public, including those housing a history museum, art gallery and antiques, book and gift shops. One of the buildings visitors can experience fully is the exquisitely restored Roycroft Inn, which began as the print shop and gradually expanded to accommodate the colony's many visitors. After a long dormancy, it reopened in 1995 with its original landscape murals decorating the Salon.

The goal today is to raise $50 million to acquire and restore the remaining buildings, beginning with the deteriorated Copper Shop and the rebuilding of the Power House, which collapsed in a storm in 2004. But even now a visit to East Aurora is rewarding and well interpreted; one brochure even maps out a "tree walking tour," highlighting some of the historic houses and trees that make up the central village around the Roycroft campus.

In Buffalo, there's ample interpretation, too, with tours focusing on important buildings and landscape features, many of which also are the focus of preservation or restoration efforts: the newly excavated terminus of the Erie Canal; the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed system of parks, parkways and roundabouts; H.H. Richardson's Buffalo State Hospital; Louis Sullivan's richly patterned Guaranty Building; Eliel and Eero Saarinen's Kleinhans Music Hall.

Like Pittsburgh, Buffalo also has the broader fabric of historic neighborhoods and defining industrial structures, like waterfront grain elevators and the General Mills plant that scents the air with roasting oats. Buffalo looks and smells like a sweet old city.