A home built for a mail-order cigar pioneer is now on the market in South Tampa's Culbreath Isles.
Located at 1102 Culbreath Isles Dr., the home was finished in 1972 for Robert Franzblau, who purchased the once struggling Thompson Cigar Co. in 1960 and turned it into one of the largest mail-order cigar businesses in the U.S.
Shortly after the purchase, the United States imposed the Cuban Embargo, which prevented companies from importing Cuban cigars and tobacco. Franzblau, who was not a cigar smoker, moved the company's cigar production to local Tampa factories like M&N Cigars and Gradiaz-Annis, which made cigars under the Thompson brand.
A decade later, Franzblau shifted the the company's focus to phone and catalog sales, where it thrived until 2018, when Scandinavian Tobacco Group purchased Thompson and Co. for a reported $62 million.
Despite former Mayor Bob Buckhorn declaring May 30, 2015 as "Thompson Cigar Company Day," the company's new owners closed the local outlet store and distribution center, laying off 112 employees, in a consolidation move in 2019.
Franzblau passed away in September of 2021 at the age of 93.
Now the home that mail-order cigars built is for sale.
The 4,343-square-foot home comes with four bedrooms and four bathrooms, as well as 133-feet of canal frontage, a pool, an elevator, and some very, very vintage furnishings that should probably not be changed at all.
In total, the Franzblau home is asking $3.6 million and the listing agents are Jeramiah Bustin and Shane Vanderson of Engel & Volkers South Tampa.
