The Port of Gramercy and St. James Parish have a humid subtropical climate with hot humid summers and cool winters. Snowfall is rare, but rain is frequent.

Laura Plantation is about five kilometers (three miles) southwest of the Port of Gramercy. Located about half-way between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the antebellum home is open for tours every day except the Creole holidays of New Years, Mardi Gras, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Laura Plantation has an 1820 raised Creole "big house" (unusual for its Federal style interior woodwork) and several outbuildings of interest. These include six slave quarters. Laura Plantation's big house is one of about 30 that are considered the peak of the Creole style. While Louisiana was once home to hundreds of similar plantation complexes, the Laura Plantation is a rare survivor today.

About 14 kilometers (nine miles) west of the Port of Gramercy in Convent, the Judge Felix Poche Plantation is open for tours from Monday through Sunday at 10am and by appointment. The plantation is an outstanding example of a raised plantation house built in the Victorian Renaissance Revival style. Judge Poche was a prominent local jurist, a Democratic Party leader, and a Civil War diarist, lending the plantation an important place in Louisiana history. He built the house in 1870. In 1880, he was appointed an Associate Justice of Louisiana's Supreme Court, serving in that capacity for ten years. Today, his plantation house is a bed and breakfast.

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