JACKSON — Public comments will be sought on a move approved Friday by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to consider the Ceres Plantation House at Flowers as a Mississippi Landmark.

Seven of nine members of the state historic preservation agency’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to take the first step toward the unique designation, which would restrict alterations to the structure along guidelines set forth by the Department of the Interior and jeopardizes the Warren County Port Commission’s plans to demolish the house, parts of which date to the 1830s. The house was among four publicly-owned Mississippi sites trustees agreed Friday to consider for landmark status. Another five sites received official landmark status Friday, including Beulah Cemetery in Vicksburg.

A mandatory 21-day comment period should be announced within two weeks, executive director Hank Holmes said. Trustees are expected to vote on official landmark status for the Ceres house when the panel meets again July 23. 

Obscured by trees at Ceres Research and Industrial Interplex near the Flowers exit off Interstate 20, the main house, its companion pool house and nearby barn came with the county’s purchase of the pasture land in 1986, later developed for major industry. Built on land granted to Uriah Flowers and passed down to later generations of his family, the structure was a haven for women and children during the Siege of Vicksburg. It has fallen into disrepair since its last commercial tenant, a plant nursery, closed in 2007.

MDAH officials stressed alternatives that would save the house and preserve the sprawling, 1,290-acre park east of Vicksburg for industrial development.

“The owners wish to tear the house down or have it removed by somebody else because they want to use that land as an industrial park,” board president Kane Ditto said. “Our interest is to try to find someone who’d like to buy the house and move it.”

Cost estimates to move the house across the interstate have approached $2 million.  

Mississippi’s antiquities laws says that sites, objects, artifacts, implements or locations may be recommended for landmark status by a permit committee composed mainly of MDAH officials. Criteria are extensive, calling for sites to show qualities associated with events that can be cited as having made a significant contribution to broad patterns of state or local history and embody construction types that reflect the period in which it was built.

Once a structure or site is designated a state landmark, only activities consistent with the federal Cabinet department’s Standards for Rehabilitation may be performed. A 16-point list of approved structural changes includes roof replacements, gutter work, aesthetically-appropriate equipment additions such as air conditioning units and removal of trees 6 inches in diameter or less. 

Several renovations to the two-story, six-bedroom house at Ceres had kept it from serious consideration in previous discussions. The port commission, which manages county-owned industrial properties, had kept the house off preservationists’ radar by assuring no major alterations were planned — a balance that had apparently tipped when the five appointees decided in February to tear it down, citing multiple broken windows and roof damage.   

The commission will seek proposals “soliciting potential uses for this historical house,” said Jim Woodrick, acting director of MDAH’s Historic Preservation Division, who presented the permit committee’s recommendations to trustees.

Wayne Mansfield, executive director of the port commission, said via cell phone two proposals to raze the main house and the pool house remain tabled as the commission mulls a set of limited options. A conference in Mobile prevented him from attending Friday’s meeting, he said.

Missouri native and show horse owner De Reul has been the staunchest supporter of preserving Ceres, urging a swath of tourism leaders and preservationists across the state to support the idea of saving the house. Reul, also absent from Friday’s proceedings, has said the house must be preserved in some way even if moving it proves too expensive.

If approved, the house joins Beulah and several other state landmarks in Vicksburg, such as the Warren County Jail and the Carr Central school building on Cherry Street. The most recent list available on the MDAH website lists 31 state landmarks in the county.

Beulah Cemetery, on Martin Luther King Boulevard, bordering the Vicksburg National Military Park, was established in 1884 by Tabernacle No. 19 Independent Order of Brothers and Sisters of Love and Charity, a fraternal order. It was named for the proverbial Beulah Land of biblical origin.

Besides the Ceres house, also considered for landmark status are:

• University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Park campus, southern portions, Harrison County;

• Brooklyn School (South Forrest Attendance Center), Forrest County;

• Tate Hall, Northwest Mississippi Community College, Tate County.

Besides Beulah, sites landmarked by trustees Friday include:

• East Sixth Street USO building, Forrest County;

• Church of the Annunciation, Lowndes County;

• Burnsville Colored School, Tishomingo County;

• Cotesville, Carroll County.

Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com