Grandson’s Cigar Company Honors Legacy Of Couple Who Died In Surfside

SURFSIDE, FL — Nick Fusco smoked his first cigar when he was 16 years old.

On that birthday, the Miami native’s Cuban grandfather, Gonzalo Torre, showed him a special drawer in his condo at Champlain Towers South, pulling it open to reveal a collection of cigars.

“He took out a box and gave me my first-ever box of cigars and I smoked my first cigar with him,” Fusco told Patch.

It’s a strong memory of his grandfather — so strong that the now-23-year-old Barry University accounting student has launched a cigar company to honor his grandparents’ memory.

Maria and Gonzalo Torre were among the 98 people who lost their lives when the Champlain Towers condo building collapsed in Surfside one year ago on June 24, 2021.

The recently launched company, El Mago Cigars, combines the first two letters of each of their names and translated from Spanish means “The Wizard.”

On the cigar company’s website, Fusco said his grandparents — whom he called Babi and Pepe — were “a couple who created magic from the little opportunity that life first offered them.”

His grandfather, Gonzalo, wrote for his high school newspaper in Cuba. When he learned that a military leader was out of town, he faked a phone call pretending to be the general and recommended himself as a top local student for an overseas educational program in what was then called Czechoslovakia, his grandson said.

He was accepted into the program and once there, he learned the language in six months and met his future wife, Maria, a native of the country.

“He swept her off her feet,” Fusco said.

They married in 1965 and their first son was born in Czechoslovakia. Gonzalo learned, though, that “communism there was worse than in Cuba,” their grandson said. They briefly returned to the island nation, where their first daughter and middle child was born.

It wasn’t long before they faked a story about having a sick relative in Canada and persisted until they were granted permission by the Cuban government to leave the country to visit their family. Fusco’s mother — his grandparents’ third child — was born in Canada “and they never looked back,” he said.

From there, the family moved to Venezuela, where Gonzalo worked as a metallurgic engineer and Maria served first as a schoolteacher and then principal before purchasing the failing school she worked for and turning it around. She saved the school from closing.

Having lived in two communist countries already, they recognized that “the downfall of Venezuela was coming,” Fusco said.

So, they relocated to the Miami area in 1981 and moved into Champlain Towers South. They were one of the first owners in the building, their grandson said, living first on the fourth floor before moving to the ninth.

In 1989, the couple bought the James Hotel on Miami Beach. For decades, their children helped run the business and since their parents’ deaths have taken it over.

Fusco never intended to start a cigar company. He was simply looking for a way to honor their legacy within his family.

Working with his friends, Miguel Pinto and Jorge Luis Molina, who own the Cigar Cigar lounge in North Miami Beach, at the end of last year, he set out to design a one-of-a-kind Christmas gift for his mother — 10 cigars in a box designed to pay tribute to his grandparents.

“When I gave my mom the gift, she was so taken aback by it. It just meant so much to her. She broke down in tears and started crying,” he said. “She thought it was such a beautiful idea and thought it was great to share their life story with many other people, so she told me to go ahead and make the cigars a brand.”

El Mago’s cigar labels and box designs features pictures of his grandparents and their James Hotel. There, Gonzalo sat at the front desk, smoking a cigar, Fusco said.

He continues to work with his friends from the Cigar Cigar lounge. Molina designs the labels and marketing materials, while Pinto has the cigars handmade for him in Esteli, Nicaragua using Cuban-seed tobacco.

Currently, El Mago, which launched in recent weeks, offers five cigar blends that come in two packaging options — a traditional box of 10 or a unique triangular-shaped box with four cigars.

Fusco hopes his cigars will be found in more than 20 locations in South Florida by the end of the year.

As he builds his brand, he continues to look to his grandparents’ story for guidance and inspiration.

“What inspired the start of this company was my grandparents and what keeps me going…was seeing my grandparents work, seeing how they lived, seeing how they were,” he said. “You could see that they had that fighting spirit. That they’ll never give up. That they’ll overcome every obstacle they face — things I went through that I’ll never have to go through because they made all these sacrifices for our family — and that’s what they’ve given to me. And this brand is my way of sharing their story and remembering the things they’ve told me.”