JACKSON — Whether Ceres Plantation House is worth protecting will take Warren County and state preservationists at least three more months to decide.

Five of nine members of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Board of Trustees voted Friday to put off designating the structure and about 41 surrounding acres a Mississippi Landmark while the panel and local officials entertain a notion to preserve the house and leave the rest of the property alone.

“This house has no historical significance and is not now or not ever been associated with any significant event in Warren County,” Warren County Port Commission attorney Mack Varner said during a tense hearing Friday on the issue. “It is another farm house in Warren County, and there are many of them.”

The motion to table was offered by trustee Hilda Povall, a preservationist from Bolivar County, as a substitute when trustee Roland Weeks offered and board president Kane Ditto seconded a move against the designation altogether. Another vote is expected at trustees’ next meeting, set for Oct. 15.

The dilapidated structure, parts of which are said to date to the 1830s, was acquired by the county from descendants of U.G. Flowers in 1986 of 1,290 acres of what had been farmland at Flowers. Past attempts to have the state step in to protect the house under state antiquities law fell short because of multiple add-ons and alterations.

A significance report prepared by MDAH described the former cotton and corn plantation as an example of a “rare surviving example” of a “vernacular plantation house with Greek Revival elements” in Warren County. The conclusion doesn’t mention the house’s broken windows and various other structural issue of late, and concedes alterations were made, though interior changes such as crown molding are “cosmetic and reversible.” All sites designated state landmarks must have all changes approved by the agency and be consistent with U.S. Department of the Interior standards.

De Reul, a developer who proposed to transform the house into a tourist attraction, spoke in favor of the designation, as did congressional candidate Bill Marcy.

“Ceres represents many things to many people,” Reul said. “Some just like her extensive history…some see her history disappearing for the sake of so-called progress.”

Marcy, who opposes U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., in this fall’s general election, told the panel the house is “significant” for its role in black history, particularly on the issue of slavery, and took issue with Varner’s comments on the site’s historical significance.

“To say that this period of time does not matter, tells that 400 years of slavery doesn’t matter,” Marcy said.

Several businesses have operated inside the Ceres house since the county purchased it, including a restaurant, a bed-and-breakfast and, most recently, a plant nursery. Its operators leased it with the understanding they could be evicted if a serious industrial prospect wanted to purchase the property, which hugs the Flowers exit off eastbound Interstate 20.