Oak Alley Plantation

The avenue of 28 oaks is iconic — but the real story runs deeper than the photograph.

If you've seen a photograph of a Louisiana plantation, chances are it was Oak Alley. The corridor of 28 giant live oaks, planted in the early 1700s, frames the 1839 Greek Revival mansion in a way that has become shorthand for the Old South itself.

The house was built by Jacques Roman and originally called “Bon Séjour” — “good stay.” The oaks predate the mansion by more than a century, their branches grown long and heavy into a living tunnel of green.

Hollywood found the avenue irresistible: it appears in Interview with the Vampire and in Beyoncé's “Déjà Vu” video. But the site's exhibits look past the romance. “Slavery at Oak Alley” tells the story of the people enslaved here, and a Confederate Commanding Officer's Tent, the Sugar Cane Theater, and an 1890s blacksmith shop round out the visit.

It is the rare place that is both a postcard and a classroom — and that balance is why it anchors so many of our tours.