Some collectors wait until they have left this earth to see their treasures head to the museum. Not nuclear physicist and Subway co-founder Peter Buck. He buys things just to give them away. The Washington Post interviews Buck who in 2004 bought one of the world's most stunning rubies and donated it to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in memory of his late wife. The Carmen Lúcia ruby is shown at right. More recently Buck acquired a 224-year-old George Washington letter which will also go to the National Museum of American History spending $250,000 to buy the document and arrange for its care.

Carmen's longtime jeweler Frank Cappiello brokered the beginning of the relationship between the Smithsonian and Buck. The letter Buck purchased was sent in 1785 and was kept in the family of the recipient until recently when it was sold to a dealer who sold it to Cappiello who then sold it to Buck, who hasn't seen the letter in person yet. Buck's generosity inspires a certain amount of envy, many organizations and individuals would love to have access to the ear and wallet of a billionaire. For Buck's part there seems to be pleasure not in as much in acquiring the specific goods but in being able to share them with the visitors to the Smithsonian.

The other day my colleague Alison Wellner reported on Newport, Rhode Island's Cliff Walk controversy over the much disputed public right-of-way. Not everything going on in the famed seaside town is controversial, however; on a brighter note, The George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom just celebrated the opening of the new Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr. Visitors Center (above), which has won praise for great design complementing its historical context. The Loeb Center is located at Touro Synagogue, the oldest functioning synagogue building in the nation. First dedicated in 1763, it was designed by America's first architect, Peter Harrison.

The Institute's mission is to promote awareness of the historic roots of religious liberty in America. In addition to the Loeb Visitors Center, the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom supports educational and scholarship programs for individuals seeking to learn about and discuss the origins and development of American religious liberties. John L. Loeb Jr. is the Chairman of the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom and is the former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark. Through the Institute, he donated both the land and the new Visitors Center building. The Loeb Center further interprets and celebrates the history and architecture of Touro Synagogue, renowned for its beauty.

The Loeb Visitors Center features interactive, multimedia exhibits exploring the meaning and importance of George Washington's 1790 Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, the first and clearest presidential expression of support for American's constitutional right to the free exercise of religious belief and the separation of church and state. Writing about the Loeb Center in the Providence Journal, architecture critic David Brussat noted, "It is obviously a classical building, yet it is unlike any other. No work of classicism could possibly depart from canon with greater dignity, hence no building could possibly fit onto a historic street with greater distinction."

Life in the aristocratic Piedmont region of rural Virginia from Middleburg to Charlottesville, known as "Hunt Country," is of course mainly centered around equestrian pursuits. However, the preservation both of open land and historic architecture are of equal importance. Foxhunting has been popular in the area since the late 1740s, when the young George Washington rode to hounds, later establishing his own pack at Mount Vernon.

In a beautiful new book called Hunt Country Style, Kathryn Masson escorts us through some of the prettiest purlieus, including the seat of the Orange County Hunt, with which Jackie Kennedy often rode. While these days (as in any other desirable locale) there's been an influx of new money, for the most part the emphasis is still more on tradition than ostentation.

Click on the gallery below to take a tour of Hunt Country. Tally-ho!

More expensive whiskey news. This time it is a relatively new bottle selling for the big bucks. A bottle of George Washington's Straight Rye whiskey, number five of a limited edition of 24 bottles, the first ever made at the distillery of one President and signed by former president George H.W. Bush went for $35,000 at a recent gala. The winning bidder was John R. Frank, Vice Chairman of Sidney Frank Importing Co., a company that imports spirits such as Tommy Bahama rum and Jagermeister. The proceeds benefit Historic Mount Vernon's educational programs. I wonder how much it would have fetched if the current President Bush signed it.

A portrait of George Washington that sold at Sotheby's last year didn't make its estimate but that wasn't the case yesterday at Christie's. The AP reports that Charles Willson Peale's full-length portrait of George Washington on the American Revolutionary War battlefield sold for $21.3 million to art dealer C.L. Prickett setting a world record for American portraits. The painting was one of eight full-length portraits of Washington painted by Peale and is the only one known to be in private hands.