Oak Alley Plantation

 hotel, plantation, interesting place, historical building

3645 Highway 18 (Great River Road)
Vacherie, LA 70090
(225) 265-2151
www.oakalleyplantation.com/

Oak Alley Plantation is a historic plantation located on the Mississippi River in the town of Vacherie, Louisiana, United States of America. It is protected as a National Historic Landmark. It is named after its distinguishing feature, an alley of a double row of live oaks numbering 28 in all and spanning 240-meter long, was planted in the early 18th century, long before the present house was built. The alley leads towards the Mississippi River.

The current plantation mansion measuring 70-feet square was built by George Swainy between 1837 and 1839 for Jacques Telesphore Roman. Jacques father-in-law, Joseph Pilie, was an architect and is considered the likely designer. The mansion has a square floor plan, organized around a central hall that runs from the front to the rear on both floors. The outside features a free-standing colonnade of 28 Doric columns, a common feature among the mansions in the Mississippi Valley at the time.

The house is characterized by high ceilings, large windows, a symmetrical facade and interior plan, and a 2nd-floor gallery for viewing purposes. The flooring is made of marble, the roof of slate, the house and columns of brick painted white to look like marble.

Its historical purpose was as an antebellum sugar cane plantation. The location is said to be the exact midpoint: 55 miles upstream from New Orleans and 55 miles downstream from Baton rouge. Its architectural design was influenced by the local French Creole architecture derived from Caribbean plantation design. The plantation was ravaged by the Civil War but later restored.

Oak Alley Plantation, which was originally named Bon Séjour, was sold at an auction in 1866. After passing through the hands of a succession of owners, it had fallen into disrepair in the 1920s. In 1925, the property was acquired by Andrew and Josephine Stewart, who commissioned the architect Richard Koch to conduct extensive restoration work.

After Josephine Stewart's death, the management of the plantation was placed in the hands of a nonprofit organization, which opened the plantation to the public.