If traveling’s your thing, chances are you’re also into history. Personally, museums are not my cup of tea, with a few exceptions: The Louvre in Paris, Anne Frank’s House in Amsterdam, and the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva, among a few others. Historical sites? Now we’re talking. It’s hard to explain the overwhelming sensation you get when visiting the cell where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned some five miles off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, on Robben Island (a UNESCO World Heritage site), or having a piña colada at Hotel Ambos Mundos’ rooftop in Old Havana, Cuba, where Earnest Hemingway famously lived for years (his typewriter is framed and hangs on the 5th floor), or walking by the building in Florence, Italy, where Leonardo DaVinci began painting the Mona Lisa (within steps of Il Duomo, or Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral).
Seeing and breathing in history is what traveling is and should be all about. And it’s what makes these five cigar lounges so historic and legendary. Their origins are the stuff of legend.
Hotel Nacional de Cuba (Havana, Cuba)
I’ve been fortunate enough to have visited this landmark in 2017 and 2023. Admittedly, I did not smoke a cigar there, but the rich history is palpable. The likes of Nelson Rockefeller, Nat King Cole, Francis Ford Coppola, and Michael Keaton are some of its most famous guests. In fact, a portrait of Keaton hangs at the hotel with his handwritten letter that reads in Spanish, “Muchas Muchas Gracias!! Yo amo Cuban gente! Mi estancia en Nacional fue muy bien! Dios los bendiga!” It translates, “Thank you! I love the Cuban people! My stay at Nacional was great! God bless you!”
He signed it in 1998 and added “Miguel” between his Michael and Keaton signature.
Cuba today is undergoing turmoil amid an ongoing and devastating energy crisis. But back in the 1940s and 50s, Cuba — Havana in particular — was a thriving destination. The mob had a heavy presence in Havana. The gangsters Meyer Lansky and Salvatore Lucania — better known as Lucky Luciano — visited Hotel Nacional in their heyday. Frank Sinatra reportedly had a secret suite, too: Suite 212, which was permanently under Lansky’s name.
Hotel Nacional today remains a working hotel, where guests lucky enough to visit can sit at the same bar, still lined with photographs of Sinatra and Ava Gardner from that era.
Grand Havana Room (Beverly Hills, CA)
This Beverly Hills staple has been around since April 1995. It’s famous for its famous members who visit the members-only lounge (by invitation only). I’ve driven by it (on the famed corner of Dayton Way and Canon Drive) plenty of times but never visited, but a slew of Hollywood stars have been counted as members.
Legend has it there’s a separate restaurant on North Canon Drive, where members can identify themselves as such to the hostess, who then unlocks a private elevator that whisks you to the secret smoking lair.
The list of celebrity guests and members? None other than cigar legends Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, and Sylvester Stallone.
The filmmaker James Orr also held the premiere for his cigar documentaries: The Fuente Family: An American Dream, which focuses on the trials and tribulations the family faced en route to building their cigar empire, and Fuente Fuente OpusX: The Making of a Legend.
Orr, who famously directed Sister Act 2, wrote, narrated, and directed the documentaries. The Fuente Family is regarded as one of the best cigar documentaries of all time. Orr also directed Cigars: The Art and Soul of Cuba.
Alfred Dunhill’s Bourdon House (Mayfair, London)
This Georgian townhouse was built in 1723 for the Duke of Westminster. What was once a wine cellar is now a basement cigar shop. Legend has it that Winston Churchill stored his cigars there. The house also survived a World War II bombing raid.
Alfred Dunhill, the iconic British businessman and founder of the luxury brand that still bears his name, turned the mansion into a haven for men thirsting for a luxurious shopping experience coupled with lots of unwinding. You can enjoy a haircut at the three-seat barbershop or visit when the emporium hosts tastings of rare and aged cigars, which are open to the public.
Tip: If you don’t have time for a cigar but want to enjoy a cold one at a bar also rich with history, visit my favorite London bar, Churchill Arms. The bar dates back to 1750, and legend has it that Winston Churchill’s grandparents, the 7th Duke of Marlborough and his wife, were regulars.
Capella Bar & Smoking Lounge at Breidenbacher Hof (Düsseldorf, Germany)
The Breidenbacher Hof Hotel oozes with history. It was built in 1812, but was blown up when it was bombed during World War II in 1943. The hotel was rebuilt in 1950 and then again in 2005. It reopened in 2007 on the same site.
Now, under Capella Hotels & Resorts, the Breidenbacher Hof has incorporated some of that history, like salvaging sandstones from Düsseldorf’s original city wall. The bar and smoking lounge, located on the first floor, boasts that it’s home to a walk-in humidor stocked with 124 Cuban and Dominican cigars.
Le Lounge Kléber at The Peninsula (Paris)
This lounge is for the history buff of all history buffs. It was here in 1973 when Henry Kissinger, as the U.S. Secretary of State, negotiated the 1973 Paris Peace Accords that essentially ended the U.S.’s involvement in the Vietnam War.
Back then, The Peninsula operated as the Hôtel Majestic and later the French Foreign Ministry’s conference venue. Hotel guests can now visit and enjoy the two-room cigar lounge with a floor-to-ceiling humidor of roughly 500 cigars behind the bar where Kissinger’s signing took place.
Not a hotel guest? You can walk in and enjoy the amenities after plunking down the $175 cover charge.
