Anyways this adventurous passion went away as I grew up, and as I focused more on college, girls, cars and summer jobs, but now I have been married for about 14 years, and I have two exciting children that are between 8 and 10.  As my daughter, Alannah has started to learn about ancient history, and ancient Egypt, once again, that interest was sparked again inside of me about the Egyptian pyramids and tombs.  I thought – how cool would it be to design a humidor that was as intriguing and mysterious as the original Egyptian pyramids?

Now there are other pyramid humidor designs out there, but in my opinion they were lacking in character, and a few of them sport very inexpensive hardware, an ugly inaccurate hygrometer on the outside, and what appeared to be a veneer surface on the outside, or it could have been just a glossy black paint job.

I wanted to really create something remarkable, and I tend to favor solid exotic woods, rather than veneers.  I find that using solid exotic woods add multiple character dimensions. 

Since pyramids are synonymous with sand, and desert and adventure, I wanted to use a wood with a sandy colour and a rich grain that would spark fascination.  I chose Australian Lacewood.  Australian Lacewood is from … well you guessed it, Australia, and is a wood that has a grain whose appearance changes in the sunlight depending upon the direction that you look at it.  Australian Lacewood was the perfect choice.

But, before we did this we had to find the proper way to craft the humidor.  At first we thought that the overall angles and cuts we would have to make would be fairly simple, but after thinking about it we had to do some fairly complex scientific calculations to get just the perfect tapered angle and cut to fit 4 exact shaped pieces to form the 4 sides.  As Egypt is actually a country in the continent of Africa, to further complicate things, I designed each trim edge to have a solid piece of 1/8” African Ebony cut right flush into the humidor body.  My final thought was to add hieroglyphic insignias somewhere on the humidor, but after some sketches I determined that it would make things just a little too visually busy, so instead, we took some Macassar Ebony, and insert smaller pyramid shapes around the base of the humidor, giving some real character and visual appeal to the overall body. 

To add to the complexity of the overall design, and to aid in the overall stability and strength of the humidor, we designed and crafted the humidor with hidden spines installed invisibly, but directly opposite the angled cut for the main body.

As pyramids contain secret passages and hidden entrances, I wanted someone to have to think of how the humidor was to be opened.  So I designed it so that no hardware would be visible.  Instead, the humidor appears to levitate slightly, with the Spanish cedar base just visible.  With one fluid motion, the entire top lifts and pivots, and balances on hinges.

The interior needed to be Spanish Cedar, and I wanted to even make the interior surprising as the box was opened.  So what we build was an additional Spanish Cedar pyramid that followed the same lines as the exterior walls.  The interior then had a smaller section that could be lifted off, and is a great spot for some about 12 petite coronas or some cigar accessories.  The bottom compartment will hold about 65 Corona cigars cigars, and the Spanish Cedar base is created at a full ¾” thick for great moisture buffering.  To add one additional feature, we cut air channels in the base to allow full circulation of the humidified air around the cigars even at the bottom.

So to sum this all up, I think that this was the most exciting and difficult humidor model to complete, but one that I am most proud of. Many thanks to my craftsman to put this dream into reality   Click here to go directly to The Carter web page.

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