A custom cigar room that smells like vanilla in Tennessee? We aren't blowing smoke

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Beata Santora and her husband Frank were staying in more, especially while raising two school-aged kids and working from home.

The couple moved to the Green Hills area of Nashville six years ago from Brooklyn, New York, in hopes of settling down in a more family-oriented community with more acreage. Beata Santora teaches ballet from home.

"During COVID, I taught my lessons in my children's playroom with a portable little barre," Beata said. "It was just a clutter of different things happening at the same time."

Things weren't working. The four family members were running into each other trying to accomplish different things in the same rooms in what's become a common problem for many families not only in Tennessee, but across the nation.

The solution: custom rooms. When building or house-hunting, families are now seeking them out to fit their lifestyles, Realtor Jake Watson said.

Watson, a Realtor with the Fritz Team in Nashville, said many contractors are leaving houses unfinished to find a buyer. Then, they'll finish the build to meet a buyer's need, he said.

The Santoras began the process with Build Nashville on their custom home, a treasure of a place with five bedrooms and six-and-a-half bathrooms for the family of four.

Every day, Beata Santora steps into a custom built 21x18-foot room, where she is greeted by bright lights shining on a hardwood floor surrounded by floor-to-ceiling mirrors with custom ballet barres for balancing and training.

The insulated room imparts a quiet calm that allows Beata Santora and her students to focus on their craft.

A tale of two rooms

The ballet room features adjustable ballet barres built into the mirrors with reinforced walls and ceilings, a far cry from the portable barre that was set up in the children's playroom before.

Beata Santora called her time spent in the children's playroom "miserable."

The new room allows her more room to work on choreography and for proper training.

"I create all my choreography in that studio, and it's also where we stay fit, and you try to stop the aging process," Beata Santora said.

The grace and beauty of ballet is juxtaposed in the next room by Frank Santora's man cave, which features a full wet bar and a custom built golf simulator inside a sprawling 25x20-foot room.

So why a golf simulator?

For her husband, a round of golf may take six to seven hours, Beata Santora said. The simulator lets him play any golf course in the country. And with his simulator, Frank Santora can play an 18-hole round in a little more than an hour. There's no travel time. No waiting. Just golf.

It's all about relaxion for buyers. Build Nashville co-owner Jamie Duncan said "Zen dens" are the wave of the future.

"Instead of using these bonus rooms for play rooms, they want a Zen den that is a wellness retreat for them in their finished basement, and so I think that's going to become more and more popular," Duncan said.

And then there are the indulgences.

A cigar room in the county that has it all

Anyone who enters Rick McKinley’s upstairs cigar room can't help but notice the lack of smoky cigar aroma. Instead, the warm toned leather room emits a smoky vanilla scent that instantly translates into a relaxed feel, thanks to a portable air purifier. When the machine turns on, it clears the smell of smoke within 24 hours, McKinley explained.

From comfy leather couches that envelop one's body when seated to a large projector screen television playing the latest sporting event, the space functions as McKinley's escape from the world.

With its warm toned tobacco stained ceiling, open space and perfect view of the backyard, it’s easy to see why this room has become his favorite.

McKinley and his wife relocated from Memphis after they became empty nesters. With both their children enjoying their own careers, and after many visits to Nashville, the couple chose Franklin. One of the features he knew he absolutely needed in his new home was a cigar room.

As a frequent visitor of the popular upscale restaurant and exclusive club The Standard, he said he wanted to recreate the relaxed feeling of chatting with friends over a cigar at home.

“Women, for the most part, do a really good job of sitting down and communicating with each other,” he said. “As men, whenever someone brings up talking about feelings, no one wants to say anything.”

He originally wanted an indoor space due to Middle Tennessee's frequent weather changes.

But since building the room, he has realized it’s become much more than a space to smoke when its cold. It has also turned into a safe space where McKinley and his friends can catch up on the latest game and share what's happening in their lives.

“When you have a cigar, it just causes you to pause, and you sit there for an hour and a half talking,” he said. “When you mention you have cigars, everyone comes over, and within minutes, people are sharing what’s going on in their lives.”

“I'm a sports guy, so I just want to be able to sit down, talk about it and talk about whatever we're watching or whatever's going on in life. Unlike with playing golf or going fishing, smoking a cigar forces you to actually sit down and communicate.”

According to a 2023 KFF statistic, 37.3% of adults in Tennessee reported symptoms of anxiety and/or depressive disorder.

Rates of mental health issues have skyrocketed and recently, the Anxiety & Depression Association of America has found that “nearly 1 in 10 men experience some form of depression or anxiety but less than half seek treatment.”

McKinley hopes to change that, one cigar at a time. His next plan is to expand his cigar room to the backyard, creating an additional enclosed space for smoking and gathering when the weather's nice.

Maximizing space

Like McKinley, more buyers of new-build and existing homes are looking to get the most bang for their buck, even if their budget doesn't have a ceiling.

Watson, the Nashville Realtor, said using space under staircases for dog rooms, reading nooks or wine cellars is helping homeowners take advantage of every square foot inside their Tennessee homes.

"Ultimately, builders are working to make a product that stands out to buyers," Watson said. "And then on the buyer side of things, people are wanting to find features in the home that make it feel unique and personal, unlike a spec home (or one with no specific buyer)."

Watson said his agency has worked with contractors who have built hidden studies behind walls or an infrared sauna. The 21-year-old real estate professional has been working in the business for two years but he's been around it for much longer because it has been the chosen profession in his family for two generations.

It's a profession that has changed over the years as more high profile buyers are coming to Tennessee to settle down, he said.

The present and future of custom rooms

At Build Nashville, Duncan said the limits are always being tested when it comes to creating a custom space that fits the needs of a homebuyer.

From storm shelters to panic rooms, Duncan said custom rooms are only stifled by imagination.

Watson and Duncan both think Zen dens will continue to grow in popularity, much like custom home theaters did years ago.

"The most unique is a salt room," Watson said. "It's just a room that all the walls and the floor is like Himalayan salt. And that is kind of like a therapeutic room that you are able to sit in and just soak in the presence of salt."

Some buyers are looking for cold plunge tubs and saunas, so much so that Duncan said contractors are including the necessary plumbing and electrical for the custom room option.

"Those are things that are very difficult to add after the fact but are very cost effective on the front end to just run the extra piping or wiring," Duncan said.

Watson said dog washing stations and laundry rooms inside garages are also a growing ask for prospective buyers.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville custom homes feature Zen dens, cigar rooms, ballet studios