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Hamilton architect Anthony Butler got bitten by the heritage bug while inspecting beetle traps.

As a teenager employed by the federal Department of Agriculture in the late 1940s, he'd ride his bicycle down to the city's old railway lands to check the bright yellow traps for the dreaded Japanese beetle, since theory was they'd arrive by railway container.

“That took me all through the industrial areas of Hamilton, which I was completely unfamiliar with because I grew up in the southwest end,” the 75-year-old remembers. “I guess I fell in love with industrial buildings.”

It's a love he carried with him when he began his studies at the University of Toronto on the advice of architect Lester Husband, and every year since graduating in 1954. In 2000, Mr. Butler was a key player in the creation of the Made in Hamilton Industrial Heritage Trail.

On a crisp autumn day a few weeks ago, Mr. Butler took me down a rather different trail — on an “architour” of some homes and neighbourhoods with an emphasis on postwar architecture, since he also shares my passion for modernism.

We begin in Mr. Butler's neighbourhood, Westdale, with its unique oval street grid that diverted traffic around a streetcar line until the tracks were taken up and replaced with King Street West. As we pass some charming little workers' cottages on Tuckett Street (named after a well-known tobacco company), he tells me about the summer jobs he had with architectural firms while at university. He worked on a building at Hamilton's Westinghouse works that has now been spared the wrecker's ball to become part of McMaster University's Innovation Park. In his third summer, he was off to England to work in architect James Cubitt's firm — “He behaved like a tyrant, but in fact he wasn't” — where one of his fellow employees was Hart Massey.

During his final summer, in 1953, he worked for Hamilton architect Mac Gerrie, then in Toronto for Macklin (Mack) Hancock and Douglas Lee, who were just breaking ground for their Don Mills project.

“I did two things that summer: The interesting one was building a topographical model of the entire property, which included the valleys of the Don,” he remembers. “The other thing I did was ... site plans for houses.”

Our first stop is Mr. Gerrie's former home on Glenfern Avenue, built in the 1960s and featured in Canadian Architect magazine when new.

Interestingly, when Mr. Butler moved back to Hamilton in 1959 after gaining experience at various Toronto firms (including Henry Fliess's), he so impressed Mr. Gerrie with his skill on a Dairy Queen hyperbolic paraboloid roof that he was asked to become a partner. Butler and Gerrie lasted until 1973.

Next, we hit Amelia Street to admire some mid- to late-fifties Jerome Markson houses, including one with a steel frame at No. 45, another at No. 79 that's for sale at $599,000, and a third at No. 125 with a subtly beautiful carport.

In the Durand neighbourhood, we pass a home owned by a lawyer friend of Mr. Butler's that resembles a small-town public building. “I completely reconstructed his front porch and these two posts with the balls on top.”

We pass many mansions, a wonderful 1930s moderne box on Inglewood Drive, Mr. Butler's former house on Markland Street, then climb “the mountain” to arrive at Mohawk College on Fennell Avenue.

Built on land formerly owned by the psychiatric hospital, Mohawk was one of the major projects of Mr. Butler's 47-year career. His “pride and joy” was influenced slightly by the work of Finnish master Alvar Aalto, he says. The low stone wall with the college's name is notable as the stones were salvaged from demolished cottages on the site.

Nearby, in the West 15th Street and Sanatorium Road area, Mr. Butler points to “very well-thought-out modular housing” designed by Norman Dobell (who is still practising in Calgary) for Grisenthwaite Construction in the early 1960s. “As I recall, they are all planned on a four-foot module, so the partitions are multiples of four feet apart,” he says of the homes, many of which are untouched by time.

On a little loop of a street called Britten Close, Barton Myers designed a group of 66 low-cost condominiums built by steel giant Dofasco in 1970. “What amazes me is what good shape they're still in,” remarks Mr. Butler of the steel-walled, steel-floored, factory-made homes (done in partnership with the federal government), which won the 1972 Chatelaine Design Home Award.

Among our last few stops are Mr. Butler's own police headquarters on King William Street and his Quaker meeting house from the early 1970s. We discuss Hamilton's city architect of the 1950s, Stanley Roscoe, designer of the magnificent city hall, and Mr. Butler's own efforts this past summer to help save downtown's 1923 Lister Block, a gorgeous six-storey retail/office complex with an interior arcade.

We wonder why “starchitects” are parachuted into cities to design projects when they know little of the local architecture or its history. For instance, the masonry detail on Mr. Butler's police headquarters harkens back to the industrial buildings he admired as a teenager, a connection that only a local boy could make.

As this local Toronto boy heads home on the QEW, one thing is certain: Thanks to gentleman architect Anthony Butler's autumn “architour,” I feel more connected to Steeltown than ever before.

In 1996, Anthony Butler was awarded the Ontario Association of Architects' prestigious Order of da Vinci for his contributions to the profession.

Dave LeBlanc hosts The Architourist on CFRB Wednesdays during Toronto at Noon and Sunday mornings. Send inquiries to dave.leblanc@globeandmail.com.