A Cigar Smoker’s Paradise
To have a cigar room, to not have a cigar room? That is the question Jay Lerner of Omaha, Nebraska, contemplated for nearly 20 years. When he was building a new house in 1999, a cigar room was part of the original plans until the very last minute, when he scratched the idea. “I thought ‘I’m gonna spend every night of my life smoking cigars and drinking Scotch and that’s probably not smart,’ ” he says. But 22 years later (“and at 22 times the cost,” he jokes) he went back to his original plan. Now, he finally has what he’s wanted for so long, a smoking room all his own. Lerner’s luxurious “Grand Havana Room’’ was finished in 2021, and the final product is a smoking spot any aficionado can admire.
Lerner’s cigar room is just off the side of his house and resembles a miniaturized version of his main residence. Both are made out of Indiana Limestone with matching roofs. The interior design of the cigar room was spearheaded by Lerner’s wife, Bobette. “If she didn’t head it up, it wouldn’t look this nice,” says Lerner in praise. “And it wouldn’t have cost as much either,” he adds with a smile.
The project took eight months to build. The room, just shy of 800 square feet, is octagonal and includes three windows that face the backyard. The eight-sided hideout can comfortably sit six smokers, but as Lerner has found out, the problem isn’t getting people in, but getting them out. “There’s only one bad thing about the room,” he says with a laugh. “When guys come over I can’t get ’em to leave.”
A large, cabinet humidor is on the left, stocked and at-the-ready. On the right sits Lerner’s shiny, fully-equipped bar, which faces the rest of the room. It’s lined with many familiar whisky brands, Lagavulin, Laphroaig and Glenmorangie, and includes such highlights as Macallan 30 Year Old Sherry Oak. The lounge portion of the room offers seating for smokers via four leather chairs and a two-seater couch, all arranged in a circle, with four side tables topped with ashtrays in between. Sleek marble floors, an electric fireplace and leather and wood-paneled walls add to the elegance. The room also has an exhaust system to clear out smoke.
Along the walls hang three portraits: Sir Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx and Lerner himself. “When people come in here, I say ‘OK, which one of these photos doesn’t belong on the wall?’ ” Lerner pauses. “That would be me.”
Lerner is a longtime cigar smoker and Cigar Aficionado reader, a subscriber since the premier issue in Autumn 1992. He says he has every issue of the magazine. Lerner’s cigar smoking started in far more humble fashion, with machine-made Hav-A-Tampa Jewels in the early 1960s during his college days, following the cigar infatuation footsteps of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, who were all big cigar smokers. His grandfather owned a vegetable market in Milwaukee. “I remember my grandfather piling tomatoes on the wooden rack and smoking a cigar and the ashes falling down on the tomatoes,” he says with a chuckle. Lerner’s father eventually took over the market and converted it into a grocery store (hopefully sparing the tomatoes in the process.) Lerner grew up in the store and his family’s roots in the grocery business would influence his career trajectory. Eventually, he ended up in Omaha, Nebraska, where he’s been for more than 50 years. After working in the supermarket industry for some time with a real estate focus, Lerner started The Lerner Co., a commercial real estate development organization that specializes in retail and shopping centers.
While Lerner’s beautiful cigar room is a marvel, his cigar collection is also impressive. Only a portion of his spoils are housed in his cigar room humidor, such as the Opus22 Heaven and Earth collection, E.P. Carrillo Pledge Prequels (the 2020 Cigar of the Year), plus Cohiba Lanceros, Esplendidos and Behike BHK 52s, 54s and 56s, just to name a few. He keeps most of his full inventory in his main residence. He also has boxes of Hoyo de Monterrey Double Coronas, Montecristo No. 2s, Cohiba Siglo VI Tubos, Partagás Serie D No. 4s and more, plus a wide selection of non-Cuban smokes that includes boxes of Chateau de la Fuente Rare Estate Reserves, La Flor Dominicana Andalusian Bulls, Davidoff Winston Churchill The Late Hour Churchills and a box of the initial release of the Padrón Serie 1926 40th Anniversary cigars (the 2004 Cigar of the Year) which came in hand-painted, hand-carved boxes of 40, of which only 400 were released. He even managed to get his hands on a handful of the highly sought-after and expensive Cohiba 55 Aniversario Edición Limitadas that came out last year.
“I’m not addicted to smoking cigars, I’m addicted to collecting cigars,” Lerner says. He estimates that he has roughly 75 boxes that he’ll never get around to smoking.
Though Lerner may not be able to keep up with his vast collection, he certainly makes use of it via his remarkable smoking spot, frequenting his cigar room about four to five times a week. Lerner enjoys the camaraderie of smoking and often invites friends over to dabble in his fine array of smokes, at least for those who merit such an experience. “I like sharing them with friends. The friends that smoke get the good cigars. The ones who take three puffs and then put it out, I have other cigars for them,” said Lerner. He also enjoys heading into local cigar bars in town to connect with friends in the community, or when he’s in Los Angeles, visiting the actual Grand Havana Room, where he recently became a member.
In hindsight, the 20-year-long wait to construct his cigar room certainly seems worthwhile as it’s hard to point out a flaw in this marvelous cigar-smoking paradise. But for Lerner, there’s just one thing missing. “I told my wife, instead of the couch we should’ve put a Hide-A-Bed,” said Lerner with a laugh. And who can blame him? If you had a cigar room like this, would you ever want to leave?
Do you have a cigar room worth sharing? Send us a note and some pictures at letters@cigaraficionado.com.
