The property was designated a National Historic Landmark for its architecture and landscaping, and for the agricultural innovation of grafting pecan trees, performed there in 1846–47 by an enslaved gardener.

[3] The Bon Séjour plantation, as Oak Alley was originally named, was established to grow sugarcane, by the French Creole Valcour Aime when he purchased the land in 1830.

The following year people enslaved by Jacques Roman began building the present mansion under the oversight of George Swainy.

Although Antoine's original trees were cleared for more sugar cane fields after the Civil War, a commercial grove had been planted at nearby Nita Plantation.

In 1866, his uncle, Valcour Aime and his sisters, Octavie and Louise, put the plantation up for auction and it was sold for US$32,800 (~US$536,157 in 2023) to John Armstrong and Hubert Bonzano.

In 1925 the property was acquired by Andrew Stewart as a gift to his wife, Josephine, who commissioned architect Richard Koch to supervise extensive restoration and modernize the house.

As a virus had wiped out the sugarcane industry in the early 1900s, the Stewarts ran Oak Alley Plantation as a cattle ranch.

Josephine Stewart left the historic house and grounds to the Oak Alley Foundation when she died in 1972, which opened them to the public.

Constructed of bricks made on the site, the 16" walls are finished with stucco on the exterior and painted white to resemble marble, and the interior is plastered.