Palmetto Carriage Works
Our Staff Charleston, SC
Our Experienced Employees
At Palmetto Carriage Works, we believe that our employees are the reason why our tours are better than the rest. From the ground crew that assists in the carriage loading to the guide that gives the tour, our staff is undoubtedly the most experienced in the industry. The amount of time that each guide has devoted to the business comes across in every tour given. Collectively, the tour guides at Palmetto have more years of carriage driving experience than any in the industry, and we still ask our tour guides to have a license through the city of Charleston to lead our enchanting tours. We invite you to take a tour with us and see for yourself the high caliber of employees we have at Palmetto Carriage Works.
Meet Our Staff
Jim Brain
TOUR GUIDE SINCE 2002
Jim, or Brain, as he is affectionately called at Palmetto, specializes in Charleston’s early history, and traveling through Ansonborough, Charleston’s oldest suburb, dating back to 1740. If he’s not giving tours, you might see Brain decked out in a tuxedo, driving a white horse and carriage through town with a newlywed couple in the back. When not working, he enjoys sailing in the Charleston Harbor. Jim has been a licensed/certified tour guide 23 years. A “comeya“ from California who enjoys stories from the past and sharing the history of our great city. Also an animal lover who likes the challenge of working with the varied mules and horses at Palmetto. In his off time he’s keeping fit with yoga, and running. Also enjoys a game of pickle ball.Â
Bruce Mont
TOUR GUIDE
Briana Toukonen
TOUR GUIDE SINCE 2017
Born in Ohio, Briana moved to Charleston in March of 2016 and started working at the Big Red Barn approximately one year later. She has a bachelor’s degree from Kent State University where she graduated Cum Laude with a major in English and a minor is business and a certificate to teach English as a foreign language. In 2011 and 2012, Briana moved to Shanghai, China where she taught English as a foreign language. She has a daughter named Maya, who was born 6 months before she moved to Charleston. Briana has worked for Palmetto since 2016 and has been a tour guide for the majority of those years.Â
Josh Hylton
TOUR GUIDE
ian gwinnup
TOUR GUIDE
Ian has multiples roles at Palmetto Carriage Works. When he's not giving tours, you can find him training and taking care of the horses. Off the clock, Ian spends as much of his time as possible outside. His hobbies include skiing, surfing, and hiking. He also enjoys playing and producing music in his home studio with friends.Â
Christina Butler
Barn Hand/Barn Lead
Christina teaches historic preservation and architectural history and is dean of faculty at the American College of the Building Arts. She has been with Palmetto Carriage Works since 2005 and is proud to be a part of this wonderful carriage family. She adopted her heart horse, Deblasio, when he retired from Palmetto's fleet in 2023. She's loved horses and history and architecture from her earliest memories and loves combining them all to give tours and train guides for Palmetto. She holds an M.A. in history from the Citadel and a B.A. in historic preservation and community planning from College of Charleston.
Josh Gertsch
Barn Hand
A Charleston native, Josh has been working with horses for most of his adult life and has been with Palmetto Carriage specifically since 2017. Josh spends most of his time working on the Doyle family farm but occasionally can be found at the Big Red Barn as well. Be sure to say hello if you see him working hard around the barn!
Leslie Basey
Greeter
Leslie has played an integral role at Palmetto Carriage Works since she started in 2014. Hailing from Michigan, Leslie has been a Charleston resident a few times throughout her life. There is something about this place that keeps calling her back. Working for Palmetto has been more than a job for Leslie; she considers the employees who work here part of her family away from home and she looks forward to many more years of being apart of such a stellar team that means much more to her than just "work."
Bunny
THE VOICE OF PALMETTO SINCE 1985
Bunny is the Palmetto Carriage Voice on the phone. Bunny handles most of the bookings of our private carriages, group specials, and weddings. Her personal attention to customer service is one of the reasons carriage customers use our services repeatedly. A survivor of both cancer and a near-fatal waterskiing accident, Bunny is a proven odds beater so it’s a pretty safe bet she’ll arrange a great carriage experience for you.
The Doyle Family
Owners & Operators since 1971
Palmetto Carriage has created the greatest carriage experience in the city. Family owned and operated, the Doyle family, together with a dedicated team of employees, has fine-tuned every aspect of carriage tours – from loading and unloading in our easily accessible barn, to providing lively and accurate accounts of Charleston’s extensive history.
Barn Staff
Behind the good looking animals at Palmetto Carriage Works is an even better-looking barn staff. With eleven full-time employees in the summer, the experience and dedication of the crew can be seen in how healthy the animals look while working. If you have any animal questions while you’re visiting us, just ask any barn hand and they’ll be happy to tell you about the behind-the-scenes part of our operation.
Customer Service Team
Our support staff excels in customer service. In addition to making bookings for our carriage tours, they also offer advice for other great tours and restaurants in the area, give directions around town, help guests onto the carriage, and more. If you have any questions or special needs, find someone dressed in white and you can count on them to make you feel at home! At the end of the day, we all want you to have the best possible experience in Charleston.
Bezos
Bezos is a friendly horse with a passion for his work. He shows affection to his drivers and appreciates the love (and treats) he gets from the barn hands in between tours. Like many little boys, Bezos would prefer to skip his daily bath, attempting to bypass that part of the day and head straight to his stall for bed. Inevitably, he does take the bath and while he may not appreciate it as much as most, he's better for it at the end of the day. He would love to see you on your next visit!
Ron
Go with the flow should be Ron's middle name. This easy, lovable horse came to us from Charleston Carriage Works, just a few doors down from the Big Red Barn. Like many of us, Ron doesn't do Mondays very well; mainly due to the scary garbage trucks he comes across, so he tends to take it easy on Charleston's trash day. Ron's favorite treat is a carrot and he gets many of them throughout the day. We love him like family and hope you can pay him a visit soon!
Howard
One of the sweetest horses around! Howard is here for the fun of it all and he is such a good listener. If you catch yourself on Howard's tour, keep an eye out for his silly demeanor, which includes racing against the other horses he meets (first one back to the barn gets all of the food - or so he thinks) and checking himself out in the reflection of the city bus windows. Stop by and say hello the next time you're in the Big Red Barn!