Elie Bleu Casa Cubana "Palacio Cienfuegos" Humidor — 110 Cigars

Elie Bleu Casa Cubana "Palacio Cienfuegos" Humidor — 110 Cigars

The city of Cienfuegos is different from Havana. Where the capital is layered — Spanish colonial grandeur beneath the weight of every subsequent century — Cienfuegos is more singular, a planned city founded in 1819 by French settlers, rebuilt in the 19th century with neoclassical ambition, and then, in 1917, given something entirely unexpected: the Palacio de Valle, a private residence commissioned by Acisclo del Valle Blanco and built in a style that has no equivalent anywhere else on the island. Moorish arches, Gothic towers, Venetian loggias, Arab-Andalusian tilework — the architecture of a building that could only have been built in Cuba, at that particular moment in Cuban history, when the island's wealth allowed its citizens to commission anything from anywhere and combine it into something new.

The Palacio de Valle / Arab-Andalusian Marquetry

Elie Bleu's interpretation of the Palacio de Valle is a romantic architectural tale: the story of the encounter between Cuba and Andalusia, rendered in 12 wood species across the humidor's exterior surfaces. The marquetry follows the building's detail — the ornate balconies, the arched openings, the ironwork — translated into inlaid wood and metal transfers that reproduce the balconies' character with the same precision that the building's original craftsmen brought to the stucco and tile. It is not a literal reproduction of the facade. It is a story told through the building's visual language: figures appearing to escape from the scenery, carried in a carriage through the composition; others dancing, enveloped in swirls of smoke that recall both the cigar and the atmosphere of the era.

Six Weeks of Handcraft

The Palacio Cienfuegos humidor requires six weeks of handcraft at Elie Bleu's Faubourg Saint-Antoine workshop — the atelier recognized by the French government as an Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant (Living Heritage Company) for the standard of its craft. The marquetry work — the selection of 12 wood species, the cutting of each piece to the drawing, the laying of the pattern across the humidor's surface — occupies most of that time. The metal transfers of the balconies are applied last, the final detail that brings the building's ironwork into three-dimensional relief against the wood background.

110 Cigars / Three Storage Levels

Inside, Spanish cedar across three storage levels holds 110 cigars. Two humidifiers maintain the environment; a needle hygrometer provides the reading. Two removable trays organize the collection by vitola or sequence. The construction is the same as every Elie Bleu humidor of this size: Spanish cedar for humidity regulation, precision-fitted lid, the interior as considered as the exterior.

Limited and numbered to 199 pieces. Accompanied by matching table lighter, Egoist ashtray, and pocket accessories in teal and red lacquer.

Now available at The Tobacconist of Greenwich.