Few things can be as charming as a carriage ride around downtown Lake Charles, especially during the holidays.
Whether it’s an evening tour of the
Christmas lights along Shell Beach Drive or an historic excursion around
the Charpentier
District, passengers on a J&R Carriage ride get a unique — if
not nostalgic — opportunity to see the city they way their ancestors
did more than a century ago.
“It was so special,” said Amber Burks, a
student at Lamar State College in Orange, Texas. She and her boyfriend,
Zachary Menard,
celebrated their third anniversary as a couple last week and
commemorated the event with a holiday carriage ride. “It really
was a memorable experience and something we will definitely do
again.”
J&R Carriage’s Christmas Tours will
be offered until Dec. 31. The one-hour rides begin at 5:30 p.m., 7:15
p.m., and 9 p.m.
behind the Lake Charles Civic Center on Bor du Lac Drive. Each
four-mile ride is pulled slowly by one of the company’s Belgian
mules, offering passengers an open-car, leisurely paced view of
the Christmas lights adorning the homes along Shell Beach
Drive.
For interested parties, the company’s drivers will give a brief history of Lake Charles and its founding families, many of
whom built homes in the Shell Beach area.
Matt Young, public relations director at the O’Carroll Group, treated his mother and her fellow employees from Boise Credit
Union in DeRidder to a Christmas Tour. He said he would highly recommend a carriage ride to anyone visiting Lake Charles.
“It was an amazing ride,” he said. “The tour guide was very informative. He offered us a history of Lake Charles and some
stories about the people who live in the houses we passed. It gave us a personal side of Lake Charles.”
Passengers can choose from one of three New Orleans-style carriages: a six-passenger vis-à-vis for $95, a 10-passenger hotel
surrey for $125, and a 12-passenger wagonette for $150. Roger Roy, the company’s co-owner, said passengers are charged by
the carriage, not by the number of people in their party.
“If two people want our smallest carriage, it will be their private carriage,” he added. “Nobody else will be in there with
them.”
Throughout the year, J&R Carriage offers rides throughout the downtown Lake Charles area, including a one-hour historic tour
of the Charpentier District for $95, a combined 90-minute grand tour of the Charpentier District and the downtown area for
$150, and a 20-minute tour of the Civic Center grounds for $25 per family.
The company also offers 30- and
60-minute proposal and wedding carriage rides for $45 and $95
respectively. For passengers
on a tour who wished to be dropped off at a downtown restaurant
and picked up after their meal, J&R Carriage offers downtown
dinner tours for an additional $10. Tours are given Monday through
Friday and can begin either on Bor du Lac Drive or at any
business location in the downtown area.
“You can even create your own downtown fantasy tour,” Roy said. “If it’s in the downtown area we’ll do it if it’s legal.”
Justin Gill, co-owner of J&R
Carriage, said his company has offered rides to passengers from around
the country and as far
away as England. Many of his out-of-town passengers, he added, are
interested in learning about Lake Charles’ history during
their tour. Others, however, want a simple, quiet stroll through
the city.
“I find that at times when people get in the carriage, especially if there’s just two, they just want to be alone to cuddle,”
Gill said. “You can kind of feel people out to tell where you’re at. You talk to them for a little bit and if they want to
keep talking you can get a conversation going. If they don’t want to talk you just leave them alone.”
Roy said his company gives hundreds of rides to passengers each year. Recently, however, the economy and the downtown-area
construction forced him to cut back on his weekend tours. He added that he’s hoping to return to his weekend tour schedule
after Mardi Gras.
“Our business depends mostly on local people, but we’ve been pleased with the response over the years, “ Roy said. “I like
history and there’s so much of it in downtown Lake Charles.”