A New Home for Foundation Cigar Company: Nick Melillo Finds Connection in Connecticut’s Tobacco Heartland

Nick Melillo, the founder of Foundation Cigar Company, was born and raised in the tobacco area of Connecticut and it shows. Some of his cigars refer to the history of tobacco in Connecticut and the office of Foundation Cigars is also in Connecticut although that is not the most ideal state for a cigar company. Financially it makes more sense to be in Pennsylvania or Florida, but Melillo wants to keep the connection with Connecticut and Nicaragua, the base of his cigar philosophy. So when his office in Windsor was about to be torn down, he knew he had to find something new without leaving the state. And he did. In Ellington, right across the street from a tobacco field. The office, located on a tobacco plantation was torn down as the farm was sold.

It takes a short ride over a gravel driveway to arrive at the single-story office. The office can’t be seen from the street. It’s a dream come true to be here. I always wanted an office on a tobacco field,” Melillo says. That dream was made possible partly by Dunn & Foster, the tobacco growing and brokerage company that not only owns the land where Foundation is based, but sells tobacco to Foundation as well.