Oakley Plantation, House, State Highway 965, Saint Francisville, West Feliciana Parish, LA

1995 Charles E. Peterson Prize, Entry
Significance: Oakley Plantation House is, perhaps, the finest surviving historic example of Louisiana's rare Angle Tidewater Creole architecture. ...As one of only four surviving raised Creole cottages in the Felicianas, Oakley is of pivotal significance in assessing the cultural and architectural history of Anglo settlement in this area. The decorative features, construction technology and the geometry all link it closely to raised Tidewater cottages being built along the coast of North Carolina in the eighteenth century. Oakley fits entirely within the Tidewater tradition of 1740-1790. Since that tradition is geometrically and historically a form of Caribbean Creole architecture, it demonstrates that two entirely separate traditions of Creole architecture were implanted in Louisiana in the Colonial period. Ultimately, both traditions may be traced to islands in the West Indies, but via very different routes.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N189
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1273
Survey number: HABS LA-1255-A
Building/structure dates: ca. 1813 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1842 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1950 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1995 Subsequent Work