The Fuente Family : An American Dream

it was the beginning of the 20th century and it was a time of optimism and hope the feeling in America is that the future was full of possibilities and that the next 100 years would be the greatest in history the population of the United States was a mere 79 million people at the turn of the century all of them immigrants or children of immigrants America was a country founded by immigrants and it would continue to open its doors to millions more in search of the American dream they would come from everywhere as far away as Russia and Italy as close as Mexico and the Caribbean one in particular came from Cuba in 1902 a 14-year old boy arrived by boat in Key West Florida on his way to Tampa to join his brothers and sisters would emigrated there two years before his name was Arturo Fuente young Arturo had come from Cuba with nothing in his pockets but in his heart he had a dream he could have no idea what lay ahead of him one Arturo Fuente arrived in Tampa he settled in the unique and lively community known as Ybor City Ybor City founded by a Spanish businessman named Vicente Martinez Ybor was created in 1885 to support the growing cigar industry in Tampa Ybor City quickly became a true melting pot populated by industrious immigrants determined to make a better life for themselves and their families it was here in this community full of hope and energy that our Twitter for went days own dream of starting a cigar business began to take shape and sure enough at age 24 he started a small cigar factory a for one day and company was established in 1912 to make all Cuban handmade cigars within 10 years Arturo Fuente built his company into a business with 500 employees the dream of a young Cuban immigrant had become a reality but then in 1924 while he was in Cuba buying tobacco tragedy struck Arturo Fuentes factory burned to the ground he lost everything it seemed as if Arturo for one day's dream of building a family cigar business had ended it would be more than 20 years before the seeds of that dream would take root again meanwhile the Fuente family was growing Arturo and his wife Christina had one son Arturo jr. then in 1935 they welcomed their second son they named him Carlos little did they know that their son Carlos would one day take his father's dream to unimaginable Heights in 1946 22 years after the fire that destroyed his first factory Arturo Fuente at age 58 tried to build his dream again he started the Arturo Fuente cigar factory this time he opened it in the back of his house he started on the back porch person in the old days the house at two points the front portion of back porch and the back porch remember it's a very small place where small or maybe ten feet by 50 50:16 field so forth and they had a we had a toilet the bathroom was right next to it connected so what he did he pulls that and put a part of the factory and then we made a bathroom outside the guy so he strongly struggle and it was just the whole family really making cigars there it was my mother when they came off from work they used to work for it before day first and then they used to come and then at night they would start making cigars there then I had my sister coming over she made scars but uncles the friends the neighbors I mean it was just picketing my mother would be cooking in the kitchen for the whole family I mean and they will go on to twelve o'clock eleven o'clock twelve one o'clock at night everybody was just nothing but party the home factory was a beehive of activity from 6:00 in the morning to midnight friends and employees populated the house rolling cigars from tobacco brought in from Cuba Arturo Fuente was a modest man and he ran his business in a modest way he sold his handmade cigars only in the Tampa area and he sold every box on a cash-only basis if someone wanted a box of cigars they came to the house at any hour of the day or night and paid for it it was as simple as that my father was only interested in selling cigars locally he was not interested selling cigars out of the state of out of the city of Tampa River because he didn't believe in selling anything on credit he always felt that if he had left a box and got paid for it while his father struggled to build a family cigar business young carlos fuentes faced a struggle of his own he would have to fight the first of many battles that would confront him throughout his life when I was 11 almost 12 I have told you I got a sick one day I thought I had a digestion because I needed a lot of mangoes and I was sick for whole week and my father was taking me to the family doctor the clinic and they said that I had a better digestion so his time starting went bye-bye I started complaining for my legs I started complaining and start complaining so one night or for the saw that I started complaining that my legs at Campbell my legs I can't do this so he got scared and he went down writing it's about midnight he went to get his friend which it was a family doctor but he would only bother his friend at the blessed moment because his fine never charging money my father didn't want nothing for nothing so the doctor came over and when he saw me he brought nurses down and started giving me a injection pilis injection nearly three hours all night and then the next morning early they took the liquor for my spine and they discovered that polio but I was already paralyzed so nicely they took me down to the hospital and then when I was going to law school I didn't even know that I had pulled I didn't know what I was sick from and when I got to the hospital then I started seeing a lot of people there you know paralyzed and all ages and I want to see my parents until I could see my parents so my father you know we got permission because we were courting he used to come every day at 10 o'clock in the morning and they will put me in the window and my father was and I was seeing from the third floor down and he was telling me with tears in his eyes don't give up don't give up cause be a fighter you're gonna make it you're gonna make it you're gonna walk have faith in me and you're gonna walk have faith in me and you're gonna walk that's all used to tell me that's all you eating tell me how do you filled it in that's all I mean day after day golly do you wanna walk now if you're gonna walk believing me you wanna walk and it was a big struggle and but I was determined I was so determined to walk and then after it came out that I took I was a few months and then I started walking a little bit more if that I could walk I mean I I barely made stops but it took me two or three years until I started walking more normal and so it was very tough at those days and it was very tough with my parents but they gave me so much support that if it wasn't for Lam I would have never made it during his teenage years kalus 20 was like any other kid except for one thing my brother and I with all we used to come from school so the first thing that we would talk when we came to school the first thing we have to do is make see guys we had to make 50 cigars each and now we can go on and do the homework go ahead and play whatever we wanted so it wasn't easy it was pretty tough but I used to enjoy it because I liked it the business my brothers enjoy it too much so my brother used to tell me let's work together so we can make it fast so we were always arguing back and forth because I didn't want to make a faster you want to make it faster in 1953 at age 18 Carlos Fuentes childhood sweetheart Anna Lopez and started his own family his father cigar business was generating just enough income to take care of his wife and himself Carlos Valenti had his own family to support now so for most of the 1950's he had to find other work when I started with my wife because we were teenager when we started going together then my father-in-law and those days Baker's were like being doctors and all the family among my wife's side with all Baker's so when he couldn't get rid of me because he tried to get rid of me but he saw them it was interesting I mean they I was really interested and he couldn't get rid of me so he decided that I better learn a trade so he got me a job in a bakery and a lot of time when I used to come from Wakely sometime when I used to work during the night if just before school I used to come in sometimes was 4 5 o'clock in the morning see my father praying for - for the war the next day because he had to go and work for somebody else so he had to prepare work so I used to see him and I won't go to bed I used to start helping my father because I felt bad for him and now I will go to school little did anyone know but this young man who was struggling to support his family by making bread and pastries would soon change the cigar world forever in 1954 Carlos Fuentes wife gave him a son they named him Carlos for when tiejun EUR like his grandfather and his father before him little Carlito would have tobacco in his blood literally when my son was born it was a little thing running around the factory and he had a problem one time it was nothing but throwing up throwing up throwing up so my wife took him to the doctor one day and say what's wrong with it so Wow make a long story short they found out that his problem was he was getting drunk out of the tobacco because he was constantly inside the factory was inside the house it was 1956 Arturo Fuente at 68 years of age asked his son Carlos if he wanted to take over the cigar business my father then he was already 60 over 65 years old and he was drawing pension so you could make so much money and still to our pension so security so one day he came to me told me look you're the one that worked the factory you're the one that next to me all the time because about my brother is older than me okay and first the factory was in his name and he decided that my brother had no interest in the factory so he told me you want the factory I'll put the factory in your name so I told a while if you do that I would take it only one to one condition I will take the factory but we have to do it legally I bought it from my brother for $1 so at age 21 Carlos wanted quit his job as a baker and went to work in the family business but doing so meant taking a 50% salary cut not easy for a young man with a family to support so I went back to my wife and um look we can't live on $40 a week so you're gonna have to go work she told me okay I will work so then I went to see an uncle - which he was a manager about the factory so I went to see mark auto-lock I more do this putting the bacon work for my father and I need my wife to work for you so he told me oh well okay I'll I'll give her a job in the office she has experience as a secretary something I don't want my wife to be a secretary 100 I'll make cigars some days she's gonna work for it and all effect 44 years after our two Terfel went I first started the business in Tampa his son Carlos was about to carry on the family tradition he could have no idea what trials and tribulations lay ahead of him Carlos Ponte wanted to put his own ideas into practice his father had always run the business on a cash basis and limited sales to the Tampa area so Carlos introduced the notion of selling cigars based on credit so he could establish ongoing accounts then he said about expanding the market for the Fuente brand outside the Tampa area so one day I told look we got to grow so he told me what what can we do what would you do at what you do I said well I'll go out and sell where will you go we gotta sell credit I'll go to Miami so I started traveling which went up no self-express really I started going out and I went to Miami and I opened the distributor and that's the way we started going it all worked and the Arturo Fuente Cigar Company began to grow but then came the Cuban Revolution in 1959 at first no one was sure what the implications would be for the American cigar companies who used Cuban tobacco in their blends and for a few years the tobacco kept coming that in 1962 Carlos Fuentes was visiting family in Cuba when it became clear to him that the United States was about to place a complete trade embargo on the Caribbean island so without telling his father he bought all the Cuban tobacco he could I came back to Tampa hey I've told my father dad I got something to tell you they say what is it don't sit down and not tell me now you sit down I did this and this man I bought the policy you're crazy what the hell you know about the Bible you don't know anything about the Bible say I bought the magazine come someday and we need the tobacco and he said but who's gonna pay for it I don't know who's gonna pay for it but we're gonna buy it I already bought it so sure enough I bought the tobacco then we got it so naturally we act Cuban tobacco for three years so then I was offered all kinds of money I remember I paid for those bills at that time two hundred and fifty dollars a bale and then we were offered 1250 $1500 a bill they used to my father dad sell it to back home don't look too bad shut up shut up you won't dare selling so that helped us to stay in maintained indeed the same cigars for other three years when the Cuban tobacco supply ran out Carlos and Arturo Fuente experimented with blends of tobacco from other countries until they finally found a blend that met with her satisfaction the blend was called Florida Orlando and even though there wasn't a shred of Cuban tobacco in it it was a success and the company continued to grow but soon the factory was outgrowing its small space in the fall when tea home I got to a point that you are prescient place and then I started taking porn in my mother's house I took one of her living room I took a beer room I kept on thinking more important for the house I remember we had to move all the furniture I had to move all the furniture out to the street middle the street to do the tobacco blending the shuffle the play we used to Blinn all in the back put them all in boxes then clean everything up and then put on all the furniture but it was a job so Carlos Ponte started looking for a new home for the company he soon found it a two-story building in Tampa it was the perfect spot but how to pay for it I used to see a building on on people see there was a building a two-story building one and a half story building it was once one story they used to be an old factory there a small Buckeye what they called swamp the mom-and-pop shop and they had a an apartment upstairs so I told my father let's go and buy that one my father taught my anger how pay for it we can't buy it you're crazy so tell him I'll get the money so I knew at that time the expressway was coming through what we were at 13th Avenue there was already a lot of talk about it it was already in the newspaper that the blow was coming the highway was coming there so I drew up a plan blueprint to build on my mother's house a floor on the top so I went to the city house and I told him I wanted the permit to build so he told me okay so they went to the back office and a few minutes later that came to see me so I can't give you a permit I said what can't you give me a permit and they told me well because the don't you know the high for is gonna go to Larry we're gonna buy your property out I said yeah but when so what it could be another year and said no you got a problem you either buy me now or give me the permit and later on when you buy me you pay me for whatever is bad oh we can't do that's okay give me the blueprint I'll go see my attorneys I don't know wait a minute so anyway they bought us out a year before so we went to the other building with the new factory and his determination to grow carlos fuentes virtually worked around the clock I used to do everything myself I had to chase the Bible and around the place I had to do everything I do all my bookkeeping I was doing everything myself because I could afford to people of people so I used to put a lot of hours in one day I was but I was I used to sometime finish working at one two o'clock in the morning I used to take a shower right there in the movie wet taste of tobacco and I would stay there I were laid in top of tobacco bales and I was sleep there because I had to open at 6 o'clock in the morning so I forget I I was three weeks from coming home I will call my wife on the phone that's it that's all I see my wife and my kids so one day my wife shows up with Khalid my son colors in one hand and a bag in the other half you don't come home I'm coming here to live with you in 1963 Arturo Fuente retired at the age of 75 even so he never left his dream behind he came to the factory every day to visit and advise his son it was a very hardworking man he was so close to us he will get along never got mad never got upset he was very close to the family he was always there for us uh he was just especially he was his very special man I mean more little hold me by the hand the baptists house food chickens little chickens in the back of use the ears a cigar maker who never nearly will become a legend he never knew his name will become a legend the most simplest man in the world you know my grandfather's 120 cigars a day he woke up with a cigar when see the cigar a day yells my grandmother cook with pork fat my grandfather raised pork you as a coatl but you know those days a man was a man the 1970s were a difficult time in the Tampa cigar business inflation was rampant interest rates were approaching 20% costs were rising in business was falling off to make matters worse experienced rollers were dying off and there were few young people willing to take their place and then on February 11th 1973 an era ended when Arturo Fuente the patriarch of the Fuente family died at the age of 85 as the new patriarch of the Fuente family Carlos knew that he had some big decisions to make it was a time that my grandfather passed away in my fight my father had to grab the reins and pull the family together for the time that we had to struggle as a family and overcome the Cuban embargo and it came to the point that my father and I speaking that we needed to go somewhere else we had to search somewhere else where kamehame cigars over the next few years Carlos went a manufactured cigars in Puerto Rico and then in Mexico but ultimately he decided the quality wasn't up to his standards he even tried to open a factory in the Dominican Republic but there was too much bureaucracy in a mountain of red tape that in 1974 a family friend suggested Carlos try nicaragua and nicaragua I I went to see this factory it was an old man and they had about 500,000 cigars or more okay I checked the cigars I liked two cigars I like the way tasted burned so forth and I said okay I could use them you know so I went ahead and bought the whole thing so I really wanted to buy time and I needed some handmade cigars in the same time I will be working to try to open someplace else but I said okay so we went in and bought the company the Nicaraguan cigars were excellent and the foe went a brand began to grow again but then the dream turned into a nightmare it was early 1978 political turmoil was building in Nicaragua sandanista guerrillas were months away from seizing the National Palace in the capital Managua Nicaragua was in a state of social and political upheaval Carlos Fuentes was there as the situation grew more and more dangerous one morning I went I was having breakfast they had a little restaurant right - in the motel so I was having my breakfast and I heard a conversation in back of me some people that was talking that they just came from an hour so I turned around told him excuse me yet did I hear you just came from an hour they say yes and I told him how was the roads if fine everything was fine quiet you know strike no shooting ah no everything was fine so I just got up I went to the front desert don't fix my bill I'm leaving I went to my room I got my clothes throw them in the bag right at a car and left when I got to the airport air was a total total mess I said I took one so what the hell I'm doing here I don't know where I was going I have no tickets I went over there and say I want to buy a ticket to Miami's no everything's booked we don't know what time is gonna be anyway make a long story short my plan to get some money I give some money the first one that I give to him but nothing happened that went back I couldn't see the guy so I ever that while I had to struggle a few people before I got it but I got on the plane I came home and the next day at midnight they call me everything is lost we got burned out everything is lost I never went back it was 1978 and Carlos four went they found himself with no factory and few cigars to sell he quickly recovered by partnering with the tobacco grower to make cigars in Honduras but within the year another tragedy story and I remember when they we had a call I was in a lot of revolution as time accidental fire the factories burnt down our hopes are gone it's gone second time we're gonna go Central America is a middle road revolution yet the sunday need says you got the Contras on Denise's the world's falling apart with aliens oh we will go back united states we're just 27 percent interest we're gonna go was this a sign was it bad luck or was this a test Carlos for when day was facing a major turning point in his life I said that said I'm quitting I can't take this anymore so I told my son look we have to do something I think we still got a pretty good business and the machine-made business but it's not what I like to do and I won't know what your feeling is we're sending a restaurant and we're speaking since we tried we tried trying and we spoken we asked each other we have a great opportunity everybody wants to buy us out at that time they were big companies taking advantage over the charm or they want to buy you out this was my experience and my father says how do you feel he says I'm not myself how do you feel the father is in my life so that's all I want to hear so I don't well you know that we brought - almost broke so the only thing we can do is I have to and if we go back if we go to any foreign country we has to be the family I don't want no more partners I don't want to have to deal with anybody else so you told me whatever you want that Carlos senior his son Carlito decided to give it one last try this time in the Dominican Republic Carlo senior had been sending Carlito to the Dominican Republic on and off for years to learn about growing tobacco so they were both very familiar with the country model of misawa's a teenager i use a sound to dominican republic to work with the growers because I wanted him to learn what it really was to grow tobacco because when I started the business I started in the factory had nothing growing tobacco which is another expect is totally different I can get tobacco I know what to do with it because that's what I was taught but I wanted my son to go a little further than I did my at my time I was hungry I was but I was a child and wanted to please my father I was so hungry I went out there and I wanted to learn I wanted to take it to the next level moving the entire operation from Tampa to the Dominican Republic meant leaving everything behind and starting all over again and to make matters worse money was very scarce I went to see my wife I told my wife look we're gonna move to Dominica she tell me but we're going to leave everything we got I just build a new home which was paid for we're living there ten years and I told her we're gonna go and it'll be a short time it'll be maybe three or four years until I get the fright to going I would come back home so I told her I'll go ahead first and I'll start and then you come with my youngest son we didn't want to leave our home that wasn't home we didn't want to leave I didn't want to leave I never imagined in my life that I would ever ever ever live outside of Tampa that's my home that's my grandfather's home that was my father's home never imagined it the decision to move was made but to finance it Carlos Fuente had to cash in his retirement plan and mortgage his house he didn't know for sure it would even work but that didn't stop him On January 1980 he arrived in the Dominican Republic and of course I lived in a hotel then I couldn't afford it the hotel anymore so I moved to a boarding house one room a war room the bathroom was about half a mile long I had to walk all the way out there to go to the bathroom and it was one room apartment my father James's Dominican Republic without knowing anyone and started searching researching where's the villa Factory I bought a car when I first came here I bought a car and 1980 Datsun which I still have now what not there's no money in the world can buy that car for me I said when it doesn't go no more I'm gonna climb in the top of the building and I remember coming up every day says look there's a building is a building that's very small but it's too big for us and they're making clothing there but they're having financial problems and he's called me up he says you know like to make this deal and everything I make it work I don't want to help pay for it but if I'm gonna make this deal maybe we'll make it work and you know but but going back my father asked what do you have to that I got three four five thousand dollars this is enough you want to come in we'll go partner it took eight months of government red tape but on September 4th 1980 the first Dominican Arturo Fuente cigar factory opened in the city of Santiago all us on the old point of the tradition transformed into new another point of tradition all I started changed we're here or hungry we have lost everything his father and son we have walked together we have fallen together we have skinned our knees together Nicaragua on dudas Tompa you were city but now this is survival or hungry we started with seven people my wife was in the office my youngest saw was helping me in the factory and myself a little started coming here because we started I starting to come to starting point and I needed help and he started helping me and then my daughter said she came out of college she started go I'd be more in the sales and she started going out selling traveling selling what she was afraid to sell maybe that time I was accepted as though I was not a girl as though I was one of them I was right along with my brothers learning about tobacco I was right along with them and every aspect of the business so they never separated me because I was a girl I was part of the family cigar business is considered a man's worldly yet women have been there all long into producing a cigars women wolf cigars as well as men or they worked in the machines my grandmother was along with my grandfather my mother was there with my father so incidentally there was always women and the industry but as a whole we think of it as a man's world but women have always been there women have enjoyed cigars as well over the decade of the 80s the business grew and the foe went a brand quickly became one of the best-known in the world meanwhile Carlito was learning more and more about tobacco growing and blending he was beginning to get some big ideas of his own then one fateful day in 1988 a visitor to the factory said something to Carlito that shook him to the very core of his being and I had a group of visitors visiting us and one gentleman a very well-known tobacconist known worldwide from Paris France after visiting our factories of my god Carlito says the quality controls the passion the love that you see among the cigar makers he says its unique I have not witnesses that witness does anywhere on the world he said but you're never gonna be great you're never gonna be the best because you don't produce a cigar you assemble a cigar that got to my son and that's what all started that he thought about making it a 100 percent Dominican tobacco cigar Carlito knew that the next step in the evolution of the Fuente brand was to create cigars not just assemble them what he didn't know was that like his father before him he was about to change the cigar business forever the next year in 1989 Carlito convinced his father to let him try to do what no one had been able to do before crow wrapper tobacco in the Dominican Republic and when I heard this said it you cannot grow wrappers that's also why not why not that's who this is it why not you know they told me they told me can't grow up great rappers in the mesh Republic you have to go great rappers in Cuba because the soil is a blessing cue balls a blast soil doesn't grow great the back alone as human beings that grows Razorback so one day I told well if you want to go rap on this country you know everybody say cannot be done and I don't see why it can't be done you know how I feel about Kent as far as I'm concerned there's nothing you can't do it and really put your mind to it but if you have to do it and you want to do it there's only one way to do it you got it all the way you got it really easy for just yourself more than you even have up to now Carlito's dream was to make something different something never before available and all dominican cigars of extraordinary quality but could he do it we were doing real good we have no reason why experiment with anything else that's why I thought my song was crazy of course when he came with the idea because I mean here we are going going bro we just built another fact we know business cigar business going down everybody was complaining everybody weren't itself and we were still going so I thought it was first crazy but after I saw the possibility that fee is that this form had I knew that we had the Masada was going to come out with something that it was me young on our dreams in the beginning Carlito jokingly called the undertaking Project X from Planet nine the end result turned out to be anything but a joke the first rapper tobacco was grown in 1992 at their tobacco farm outside Santiago called Chateau de la Fuente after aging for three years the first all Dominican cigar was released in November 1995 it was called the Fuente Fuente Opus x and it was a sensation because of the new magazine the cigar aficionado an unprecedented boom and cigar popularity had begun nowhere was it more evident than in the overwhelming demand for the four went a pointing Opus X when we started this project a lot of people smoke the cigar Decatur would give it to and when it got raided in cigar aficionado and it did very very well back in that time there were very few cigars from the Dominican Republic that were rated as high as the point of lectures rated because Cuba is rated very high at that time and so the magazine really had such an influence on the the demand creating the demand for the product because obviously the rating did so well and the gentleman came down to the story on the farm so these things were done prior to being released the Fuente Fuente Opus X was so popular with consumers that the demand quickly surpassed the supply of cigars to this day the production of the four until one day opus X is limited to only 750,000 cigars per year expectations this cigar or through the roof so when someone gets a pointer for the Opus X cigar and smokes it I mean you know the reputation of the family is on the line per se so could we make more we could probably make more could we make them as good as we make them now no we could make more but they wouldn't be as good could we age them less yeah but they wouldn't be as good so we're not about making more and the bottom line to be honest with you we're more about just making the absolute best cigar that we can make and this is one of the greatest cigars in the world the Fuente family was now producing some of the most desirable and famous cigars ever made but success often breeds animosity and in 1996 after decades of struggle and hard work they were hit with one of their most trying challenges ever the makers of a California wine called Opus one sued the Fuente family for trademark infringement for their new cigar the full went a four went a Opus X I just couldn't believe it and that we were going to be lost sued for something that I knew there was rightfully ours and we had built so when I first got the ladder of disease my son came to me and my respond was they're crazy go for it whatever it takes go for it because I can't believe that somebody's going to take something that's rightfully us it was very emotional very tough but that's something that we had to do and something I have to do because it was rightfully ours we lost everything after the embargo we lost everything to fires we lost things and revolution and we lost it everything said but you know what we have lost our integrity when we were challenged we felt our principles our integrity for challenge it didn't matter whether we want to lost what really mattered is that how we walked out of with our heads up I can accept it there's nowhere with a sceptic and I told my son even though if we lose everything it's whatever it takes I mean I I remember I was born without nothing I'll start again without nothing and I never got scared about that it was just our honor that was being defended touched and we had to go with it and that's what we did and we proved that we were right the fuh went A's won that lawsuit and their family honor was preserved but then in 1998 nature dealt them another blown its name was hurricane George it was a category 3 hurricane and had hit the Dominican Republic with winds of up to 130 miles an hour the damage to Chateau d'If 20 was devastating I remember the day that there the storm we couldn't get in touch here the phones or nothing so my son and I came down to 6 o'clock in the morning and we had to abandon the car in the highway because we couldn't cross to the farm so we walked down all the trees looked down everything down and when I first came into this farm and I saw oil boys I think we had the 19 barns tobacco points and there was 17 down on the floor if I recall so I remember I told my son I guess this is a war from God because is it I mean we've gone through so much already and till my son died and my son look at me and say dad what you've gone through you mean to tell me you were ready to quit now you must be getting old I said colita water your things here we'll make it better so I said okay we'll make it better it was tough I think for the first time in my life that after all everything that I've gone up I thought this was just a message this is it but I guess my son being with me so long that he figured that with everything that I've gone through in the past that this will not stopped him and it didn't Carlos for when take aim as close as he's ever been to giving up but he and Carlito ultimately refused to surrender and they rebuilt Chateau de la Fuente into something even grander than it had once been today it is one of the most beautiful tobacco farms in the world over the past 10 decades the full wente family has had to overcome obstacle after obstacle what they did is nothing short of astonishing on the surface none of it should have worked and for an ordinary family it wouldn't have but the foe went a family is no ordinary family I think more that it was determination we slap a dream play or nothing but tobacco and I mean we had a lot of bad times and but we just overcome it well we're common we just look further out further out and keep on trying the Fuente family has been in the cigar business for almost a century three generations of passion and cigar makers throughout it all their constant beacon of purpose and strength has been the family the dream of a humble immigrant from Cuba the turn of the century had come true a hundred years later the feh went a family joins the ranks of the other great families in the world whose name stands for the very best the world has to offer wherever we go we take our name with us and and we do represent our name and our family but it's just what we feel in our hearts I guess a and it just makes it all so easy my father has always said life is what you made it and when you do something you enjoy then then it's all natural and that's that's the way we feel I think when my father-in-law has his entire family eating at one table that is his happiest moment but the grandchildren running around and his two sons there's daughter his wife there is no question in my mind that is the happiest my father lawyers the family to us is very very important just being around loved ones but like I said it's being around people you love to me that's what life is all about we're all one there's no separation between my father my sister my entire family we're all one I was taught that way there's no words really to express it I mean it's something that I dream of I always prayed that someday that I would have in my old family the same thing that I had in my parents family were little growing up and I think that it was accomplished if not be young you

Channel: Hamza Aqallal

Views: 198,759

Keywords: Arturo Fuente, Fuente, Cigars, Cigar, Arturo Fuente (cigar), Cuba, Habano, Dominican, Opus X, Opus, Chateau, Robusto, Toro

Id: d3aQ8mEISrU

Length: 44min 53sec (2693 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 07 2012