From Floor Plan to Full House: Air Purification at Sunset Cigar Lounge
Sunset Cigar Lounge — Henderson, Nevada
Tommy “G” Gerjekian had a clear vision for Sunset Cigar Lounge: a thoughtfully designed public lounge alongside a private members’ area with 24-hour access. Before signing the lease, however, he needed to know whether he could afford the air purification and ventilation required to make that vision work.
LakeAir helped Tommy move from early planning and equipment uncertainty to a complete system designed around his floor plan, seating, drop ceiling, operating preferences, and budget. The completed package included nine flush-ceiling air cleaners, two make-up-air units, app-based controls, and a defined filter-maintenance program.
At Sunset’s soft opening, 52 people arrived—more than three times the expected attendance. When the lounge became smoky, Tommy activated the make-up air and reported that the smoke cleared in approximately five minutes. The unexpectedly busy evening became the system’s first meaningful real-world test.
Project at a Glance
Facility: Sunset Cigar Lounge
Location: Henderson, Nevada
Project type: New cigar lounge
Primary objective: Create separate public and private smoking environments without hanging air cleaners
Ceiling: 10-foot drop ceiling with approximately 4 feet of clearance above
Air-cleaning system: Eight LAFC-RC2 HEPA units and one CM2-RC2-HEPA unit
Ventilation support: Two 900 CFM ceiling-hung make-up-air units
Controls: Programmable app-based control organized on an iPad
Accepted 2024 equipment package: $22,500, including commercial shipping
Opening test: 52 guests compared with 15–20 expected
The project price shown above reflects this specific 2024 proposal, configuration, discount, and shipping arrangement. It is historical information, not a current LakeAir quotation.
A Relationship That Began at PCA
The Sunset project did not begin with an online order. Tommy had visited LakeAir at the Premium Cigar Association Convention during two consecutive years while developing his plans for a Henderson cigar lounge.
In April 2024, LakeAir followed up with Tommy while he was still searching for a suitable property. By August, he was preparing to sign a lease and asked to continue the air-purification discussion by phone.
This early relationship mattered. Tommy was not merely selecting equipment for a completed building. He was deciding whether the space could support the lounge he imagined—and whether the necessary air-quality system could fit within his project budget.
The Questions That Had to Be Answered Before the Lease
Tommy’s two principal lounge areas were substantially different:
- The private members’ lounge measured approximately 45 by 16 feet.
- The public lounge measured approximately 50 by 33 feet and included a planned 20-by-10-foot walk-in humidor.
- Both areas had 10-foot drop ceilings with approximately 4 feet of accessible space above them.
Tommy had several practical questions. How much equipment would the two areas require? Where should the units be placed? Could the air cleaners be integrated without compromising the appearance of the lounge? What would be required for exhaust and replacement air? Most importantly, could the entire plan remain affordable?
Other suppliers had proposed hanging air cleaners. Tommy was direct about his reaction: suspended equipment did not appeal to him visually. He knew LakeAir offered air cleaners that could sit flush with standard 2-by-4-foot ceiling tiles, but he still wanted LakeAir to evaluate the space and recommend the most appropriate solution.
Designing Around the Lounge Rather Than a Single Machine
LakeAir offers multiple commercial smoke-control formats, including flush-ceiling, wall-mounted, suspended, floor-standing, and ducted systems. That range allows equipment to be selected around the building instead of forcing every lounge into the same machine format.
For Sunset, the drop ceiling made the LAFC flush-ceiling platform the natural choice. The units could provide distributed air cleaning while preserving the clean appearance Tommy wanted.
Unit placement was not determined from square footage alone. When Tommy asked LakeAir to mark recommended locations on his floor plan, Randolph Bush requested the proposed seating arrangement first. Seating helped show where people—and therefore the heaviest smoke generation—would be concentrated.
The resulting placement plan provided:
- Three LAFC-RC2 HEPA units in the public lounge.
- Four LAFC-RC2 HEPA units in the private members’ lounge.
- One LAFC-RC2 HEPA unit in the conference room.
- One CM2-RC2-HEPA 2-by-2-foot unit in the office.
This produced a total of eight LAFC units and one CM2 unit. Each area received its own distributed air-cleaning coverage rather than relying on one large machine to pull smoke across the entire facility.
An Affordable Make-Up-Air Approach
Tommy was considering two roof-mounted exhaust fans, but the people he had previously consulted had described air-exchange equipment as expensive without giving him a complete explanation of how it would operate.
LakeAir proposed two 900 CFM ceiling-hung make-up-air units. Local requirements did not require the replacement air to be heated or cooled by the supplied LakeAir equipment, allowing untreated make-up air to provide a more affordable ventilation approach for this particular project.
LakeAir discussed the proposed make-up-air solution with Tommy’s construction team. The plan survived the project team’s review and became part of the accepted equipment package.
This was important to the original promise. Tommy had approached LakeAir before committing to the space because he needed a dependable budget. The system presented during planning was the system his team ultimately chose to purchase.
Turning the Lounge Into an Organized Control System
Programmable control became especially important to Tommy. As a full-time owner-manager who values order, he wanted the lounge’s environmental equipment arranged in a way he could understand and manage easily.
The controls were ultimately organized on an iPad with individually named areas, including the public front, center and rear; private front, center and rear; office; conference room; kitchen; and air-exchange functions. Tommy could see and operate the lounge as a group of understandable zones rather than as a collection of anonymous switches.
The control setup also produced one of the project’s more memorable installation stories.
During startup, the installer struggled to connect the smart controls and became frustrated enough to suggest removing the units and returning them to LakeAir. Randy was supporting the installation over speakerphone and asked the installer whether he had any children. The installer said he had a 14-year-old son.
Randy suggested bringing him into the room.
The prediction was that the teenager would connect the first unit within 15 minutes. It took him five.
That small anecdotal victory broke through a difficult moment and became the beginning of what Tommy later considered one of the lounge’s crowning achievements: having the environmental controls organized on his iPad.
LakeAir did not perform the field installation. Local contractors installed the equipment, while LakeAir provided the system plan, equipment, placement guidance, documentation, and remote technical support during installation and startup.
An Unexpected Soft-Opening Test
Sunset planned its soft opening around an expected attendance of approximately 15 to 20 people. Instead, 52 guests arrived.
The turnout placed an immediate smoke load on the new lounge that was more than three times what Tommy had anticipated. The space became smoky, and Tommy activated the make-up-air system.
He later called Randy and described what happened:
“Randy, we had 52 people—three times what we expected. The place got smoky, I turned on the make-up air, and the smoke cleared in five minutes. The night was a huge success.”
The five-minute clearing time is Tommy’s observation from an operating event, not a controlled laboratory measurement. Its value is that it records how the complete system responded during an unexpectedly demanding evening—and how the owner experienced the result.
Planning for Performance After Opening
Cigar-lounge filtration is not a one-time equipment purchase. Smoke loading continues every day, and maintaining performance requires scheduled replacement of both particle and gas-phase filters.
Sunset’s original proposal included a filter-subscription plan:
- Eight LAFC HEPA filters and one CM2 HEPA filter every six months.
- Eight LAFC carbon filters and one CM2 carbon filter every four months.
- Filters billed when shipped.
Including maintenance during the original planning made the ongoing operating requirements visible before the equipment was purchased. It also documented that HEPA filtration and activated carbon perform different jobs and require their own replacement schedules.
Tommy later reported that he established an operating schedule for the system and that the schedule worked well for the lounge.
A Lounge That Remains Well Regarded
Approximately 18 months after opening, Sunset Cigar Lounge remains an active and well-regarded Henderson destination. A public venue listing reports a 4.8-out-of-5 rating from 58 Google reviews. Reviewers describe the lounge as clean, comfortable, welcoming, and carefully maintained.
Those public reviews reflect the entire Sunset experience—Tommy’s management, service, design, cleanliness, cigar selection, and atmosphere. They should not be interpreted as measurements of LakeAir equipment alone. They do, however, provide independent evidence that the finished lounge successfully became the kind of environment Tommy had hoped to create.
What the Sunset Project Demonstrates
The Sunset Cigar Lounge project was not simply a sale of nine air cleaners. It was a planning process that began before the lease was signed.
Tommy brought the vision, the proposed space, the aesthetic standard, and the business risk. LakeAir helped translate those elements into equipment quantities, unit formats, placement, make-up air, controls, budget, and maintenance requirements.
The result demonstrates several principles that apply to new cigar-lounge planning:
- Air purification should be considered before the lease and build-out are finalized.
- Equipment format should complement the building and interior design.
- Capacity and placement should reflect room volume, seating, zoning, and expected use.
- Exhaust must be supported by an appropriate source of replacement air.
- Controls should make the system understandable to the people operating it.
- Filter maintenance should be planned before opening, not after performance declines.
- Manufacturer support remains important when local installers encounter unfamiliar equipment.
For owners beginning with the same question Tommy asked—“Can I afford to create my dream in this space?”—the best time to begin air-quality planning is before construction decisions become permanent.
Use the LakeAir Cigar Lounge Environment Planner to begin evaluating your space, or contact LakeAir with your floor plan, ceiling height, seating concept, and expected occupancy.