Oakley House — Audubon State Historic Site

John James Audubon arrived at Oakley in 1821 to teach drawing to a teenager named Eliza Pirrie. The arrangement gave him room, board, $60 a month, and every afternoon free to paint. He stayed four months and produced 32 paintings that became the foundation of *Birds of America*, the most expensive book ever sold at auction. The plantation house was built circa 1806, an example of early Anglo-American architecture in Louisiana. Its interior rooms have been renovated in the style of the Federal period. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The 100-acre property contains the forest that served as setting for many of the paintings Audubon created or began at Oakley. The birds he painted still use it. The place still looks enough like 1821 that you can see what he saw.