Bulldog Tours Will Make You Think Twice About Ghosts
Not Only Does John LaVerne Love Ghost Stories, But His Mission Is To Support Local Culture By Preserving Charleston’s Rich History
John LaVerne found his life’s calling aboard a horse-drawn carriage traveling through the streets of Charleston. “I was in my senior year at the Citadel,” he recalls, “doing a summer internship at the tourism office. One day it was slow, so I jumped aboard one of the carriages that tour the city. Within two minutes I knew that giving tours of Charleston would be what I did for the rest of my life.”
After a stint driving carriage tours and a few other jobs, LaVerne founded his own tour company, Bulldog, in 2001. LaVerne’s first tour explored the dungeons of the Old Exchange, one of the city’s most important historical buildings, where pirates and Revolutionary heroes had awaited their executions.
“I went to the Exchange and said I wanted to partner with them on a ghost tour,” John says. “I’d take people through the dungeon at night and give the Exchange one-third of the profits.”
LaVerne’s second tour partnered with another non-profit to offer ghost tours through the Old City Jail, said to be Charleston’s most haunted building. The Bulldog tour is the only one to actually enter the jail, and is a favorite with visitors.
From those first tours, Bulldog has expanded to offer more than a dozen different tours of Charleston, and has raised $3 million for historic preservation of the Old Exchange, the Old Jail, and the Circular Church graveyard, Charleston’s oldest - and most atmospheric - burying ground. Nearly a million visitors have taken a Bulldog tour to date.
Laverne calls it “sustainable tourism. It’s nice to make sure Charleston remains well-preserved.” The Bulldog office occupies a 19th century historic house a block off the City Market. John renovated it three years ago, earning an award from the Preservation Society of Charleston.
The majority of Bulldog’s offerings are walking tours. “The biggest misconception about Charleston is the scale of the city,” LaVerne says. “Many visitors expect a large metropolitan area full of skyscrapers and gigantic hotels. We are actually quite small – small enough that you can walk the entire length of our historic district in about 45 minutes. This is a place where you don’t even need a car. You can easily walk to shopping, dining and all the attractions.”
Traveling by foot allows visitors to go where busses can’t take them. “We go where we want,” John says. “Down alleyways, on cobblestone backstreets.” Thanks to Bulldog’s contributions to historic preservation, its tours also go where other tours can’t, including hidden gardens, dungeons and graveyards.
In addition to its popular ghost tours, Bulldog also offers daily “strolls” of the historic district and a variety of food tours, highlighting the city’s food scene, where traditional Lowcountry cuisine and cutting edge trends meet in a delicious mix.
“People are often surprised by the amazing quality of our food,” John says. “Despite our small size, Charleston has numerous phenomenal restaurants. Our food scene is second to none. There’s been a real culinary explosion here in the last 10-15 years, with rising chefs taking traditional ingredients and putting their own twist on them. But we’ve been doing farm to plate in Charleston for over 300 years – it’s just the way it’s done here.”
Laverne says he added food tours in 2009 after a Food Network chef came through and took his ghost tour. “She told me food tours were a big trend in other cities, and that we should try it.” Bulldog’s five food tours, exploring different aspects of Lowcountry cuisine, are among the company’s most popular. All, including the dessert tour, include samples.
LaVerne employs some 55 tour guides, depending on the season. Like John himself, most are native Charlestonians, and all are licensed by the city. “Charleston takes great pride in its tour guide training,” LaVerne says. “The initial exam is 880 pages and covers 145 buildings, where you have to know the exact address, the year it was built, the architect, its whole history. Then every three years, guides have to take a four-hour recertification exam. Charleston wants to make sure its guides are great ambassadors for the city.”
LaVerne recently added a Haunted Pub tour and an excursion to the haunted Arsenal, the city’s oldest building, to Bulldog’s lineup. Another new tour is the R-rated Dark Side of Charleston. John describes it as an uncensored history tour exposing Charleston’s dirty little secrets, complete with crime, corruption, scandals, brothels, and some fascinating historical figures.
John admits he loves ghost stories, but is he a believer? “Charleston will make a believer out of you,” he says. “I’ve lived in nine houses downtown and I’ve experienced some strange stuff… lights going on and off, doors opening and closing, the sound of kids running. I’ve been making repairs over at the Old Jail and had my power tools unplugged over and over.”
As the head of Charleston’s foremost tour company, named the best in the city by locals for seven straight years, John LaVerne sees his mission as supporting local culture, preserving Charleston’s rich history and sharing it with as many people as possible. In addition to his donations to local historic properties, he supports numerous arts organizations, environmental efforts and charities. Local residents enjoy a free night every year, and children who achieve straight A’s on their report cards receive a free tour.
“It’s been a blast watching Charleston change in the last few decades from a sort of sleazy coastal town to a very cosmopolitan city,” he says. “Charleston history has always fascinated me, and I try to make sure everyone else - visitors, locals, and especially kids - get excited about it too.”
Renee Wright
A graduate of Franconia College in Social Psychology, Renee has worked as Travel Editor for Charlotte Magazine and has written three travel guidebooks for Countryman Press among other writing assignments. She enjoys food and camping.
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