The Silo
While the widespread appeal of retractable tiki bars or disappearing hi-fis may have gone out with the kitsch of circular sunken living rooms in space-aged bachelor pads, Brizard & Co. has taken the ultrahip concept of hidden furniture and brought it to the cigar world with the Silo, an illuminated multistage humidor engineered around a supercool, cutting-edge elevation system.
At first glance, Silo appears a fairly innocuous console, all straight lines and flat surfaces. It stands 48 inches high—the same height as a standard cocktail bar—and won’t dominate the average-sized room. But one discrete click of a remote control and the first level quietly rises from the pedestal with smooth motion and uniform speed. What is revealed is the humidor’s carousel level, or “stage one” of the Silo. Four low-Kelvin recessed LEDs mimic the warm look of incandescent bulbs, throwing concentrated beams of gallery-style light onto a cedar carousel, which elegantly displays the cigars in an upright position at a 15-degree lean. (Like, wow!) You and your super-cool friends are not only blown away, but can easily select a stick.
Press the button for “stage two” and conjure the Bunker, another sublevel compartment that ascends from the Silo’s base. The bunker holds up to 12 boxes of cigars and also has it’s own quaint little lighting system.
The graceful movement of the Silo doesn’t depend on hydraulics or pneumatics or scissor lifts or any other conventional mechanics, but rises and falls via LinkLift, the same rigid chain technology used to elevate the major tonnage of entire stages on big venue applications. Its telescopic rigid chain is flexible in one direction and strong as a steel beam in the other.
As for humidity, the Silo keeps your cigars fresh via the fine mist of ’s CigarSpa humidification unit and two additional low-volume fans for optimal circulation. A sealing skirt under the Bunker prevents moisture from migrating into the lift motor or the mechanical actuator.
Since tech specs are for squares, Brizard & Co. will slap the exterior of this swell Silo with any combination of exotic woods, leathers, semiprecious stones or anything else you can think of to keep your digs out of dullsville. Base models start at $18,000 and turnaround time can be anywhere from two to four months depending on the design. If the long wait cramps your style, just mix yourself a Mai Tai, put on a George Shearing album and that these cats are doin’ it right by making all their swanky Silos in sunny California, you dig, Daddy-O?
Visit brizardandco.com.
