Laura Plantation

Laura Plantation at 2247 Louisiana Highway 18 in Vacherie, Louisiana, stands approximately 45 miles upriver from New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi River and offers one of the most historically detailed and academically researched plantation tours in Louisiana. Unlike many River Road plantation sites that focus primarily on antebellum architecture, Laura Plantation reconstructs the lives of four generations of the Creole family that owned and operated it, as well as the enslaved Africans and Senegalese people who labored there, drawing on an extraordinary archive of more than 5,000 pages of documents discovered in 1993. The plantation complex dates from 1805 and includes the main house — a raised Creole-style structure painted in its original ochre yellow, terracotta red, and green color scheme — as well as a collection of outbuildings, slave cabins, and kitchen structures. The main house reflects Creole rather than Greek Revival architectural traditions, with a broad hip roof, French-style floor-plan, and wraparound galleries on both levels. Guided tours last 60 to 75 minutes and are conducted in both English and French, reflecting the plantation's Creole cultural heritage. The tour covers the family's Creole social world, inheritance practices that gave women significant property rights, the experience of enslaved workers documented through personal testimony, and the plantation's claim as the place where Compair Lapin — the Br'er Rabbit stories — were first collected from enslaved Senegalese storytellers in the 1870s. Two slave cabins on the property are preserved and interpreted as part of the tour. A typical visit, including the tour and grounds exploration, lasts 1.5 to 2 hours. Laura Plantation pairs naturally with Oak Alley Plantation, located approximately 5 miles downriver along River Road, for a full day on the River Road heritage corridor.