Bill Delfs is all about death.
And lately dinner. Dinner and death. A classic combo.
It’s the latest service, if you will, from his unusual business. Delfs is CEO of RavenHearse, a company — well, just two guys really — that last month began hosting Dinner & Death parties at Trail Dust Town. Attendees dine on a fancy meal before competing against each other in a scavenger hunt and puzzle-solving in a race against death. RavenHearse also runs a year-round haunted house in addition to offering chauffeured hearse rental, Haunt-a-grams and decorating expertise.
As far as Delfs is considered, there’s no reason to restrict spooky fun to Halloween.
“Nothing shows you care like a good scare,” says Delfs, 55.
Oh, and did we mention that he does weddings? Yup, he’s officiated quite a few in his northside home’s backyard, which is decorated with a casket and tombstones.
Delfs, a self-taught makeup artist and set designer, is the creative force behind the 9-year-old RavenHearse while California-based partner Eric Lipanovich handles the technical stuff.
A single dad whose four sons were all adopted out of foster care, Delfs loved the escapism of those old TV shows “The Munsters” and “The Addams Family” and wanted to take them from the screen to real life.
“People need a little bit of odd,” Delfs says.
He delivers.
Delfs was “born here by accident.” His pregnant mother was visiting Tucson from California when she went into early labor. One of four children and the only boy, Delfs was harassed by his sisters. He tormented them right back.
“I was a horrible kid,” says Delfs, who returned to Tucson with his newly divorced mother and sisters at age 12.
He’d suspend spiders from the ceiling with invisible thread or make a replica of a human hand and leave it in the fridge. He bought a stooped, bug-eyed butler mannequin that he put out in the middle of the night.
Delfs learned he had ADHD when he was 35, but as a kid, the doctor simply said he had Shark’s Disease. Just like sharks have to constantly swim to live, Delfs was always in motion.
His mom would send him to the yard at night to run laps in the hopes that would tire him out enough to sleep. It didn’t. Instead, Delfs would calm his racing mind by inching out of his bed and watching whatever flickered across the TV screen. Once, it was the Boris Karloff horror movie “Frankenstein.” Delfs wasn’t scared, he was entranced.
We live in a world where technological advances like computer-generated imaging makes amazing special effects possible, but Delfs — who draws his inspiration from oldies but ghoulies like Karloff and Vincent Price — says nothing scares like engaging the imagination. In his haunts, he relies on little more than a flashlight and sleight of hand. It works.
“I’m not trying to brag, we’ve had 14 people pee their pants,” Delfs says.
Loss of bladder control isn’t the ultimate goal. The haunted house experience is customized so that even young and special-needs kids or really wimpy adults can get spooked to their own level of comfort. Characters will turn on the lights or explain what they’re doing.
“It’s interactive theater,” he says.
At his own home — with its professional chef’s kitchen that also happens to be casket-shaped — Delfs’ sons, who help at the haunted house when they want, get final say in what spooky tchotchkes stay.
Anything that really creeps them out goes. Delfs, who describes himself as a religious Mormon, draws the line at Ouija boards and anything demonic or sacrilegious.
“I’m a total contradiction, I’m OK with that,” says Delfs, who speedtalks like he’s being timed with a stopwatch.
As much as he loves it, RavenHearse doesn’t pay the bills so Delfs — who studied deaf education at Pima Community College — does home renovations and property management on the side. He dreams of starting a cable TV show starring the RavenHearse characters he’s created or running an, ahem, dead and breakfast. Someday.
With four kids, three dogs plus one he’s fostering for his sister and a mischievous raven, Draven Marius, who can turn on the kitchen faucet and reach into Delfs’ wallet to pay for his own slice of pizza at Costco, Delfs doesn’t really have the time or money to expand RavenHearse. In fact, it’s February and he still has a very crispy Noble fir up in the living room along with other decorations from a certain winter celebration. But, that’s OK with Delfs.
“Christmas is my favorite holiday.”
And, in case you were wondering, yes, he does decorate for Easter.
