A century ago, Nels and Lillian Anderson operated a dairy on the north end of Bend.

Lilly Dairy, named after Lillian Anderson, covered more than 300 acres. Today, it’s the office of Instant Landscaping Co., just off U.S. Highway 97. It’s also right next to the path of a highway project that the Oregon Department of Transportation plans to build sometime in the near future, to ease traffic congestion.

That project would leave the house landlocked amid newly built highway lanes and local roads, said ODOT spokesman Peter Murphy. The agency spent several years working on an environmental impact statement and in the process, identified the house Nels and Lillian Anderson built in 1929 as an important cultural resource.

At the moment, however, its fate is unclear. Murphy said ODOT officials hope to complete their analysis and obtain a record of decision on it in the next year. The project is currently unfunded, but ODOT will complete the analysis so work can begin when money becomes available.

Tim Larocco owns Instant Landscaping Co. with his wife, Julie. The couple purchased the Anderson property in the late 1990s.

Nels and Lillian Anderson homesteaded the property in 1915.

“They’ve got a deed from Woodrow Wilson,” Larocco said of the family. “It’s estimated the house was built in (1929).”

“After we bought the property, a local historian contacted us and encouraged us to save the house, so we had some professionals look at it and they concurred that it was really worthwhile saving,” Larocco said. They kept “all the original windows upstairs and there is really very little refurbishing that wasn’t pretty accurate to the original construction.

“It was originally local brick and local stucco,” Larocco said. “We had to redo the surface of the stucco but it’s real, real similar to what it was originally.”

Larocco said “it’s pretty evident (ODOT is) taking the property.” Larocco is concerned about the future of his landscaping business, but he also worries about what will happen to the Anderson house.

“We’ve met so many people that have lived here, all the way back to World War II, and we’ve grown attached to the significance of the structure so we’re really trying as hard as we can to make sure the house gets saved in one form or another,” Larocco said. He said his 15 employees feel the same. “They don’t want to relocate, but they mainly don’t want to see the house bulldozed. So it’s really up to the highway department where they go from here.”

Senior Planner Heidi Kennedy said the city of Bend designated the Anderson house as a historic and cultural resource in 2009. “It does have protection,” Kennedy said. Property owners must obtain approval from the Bend Landmarks Commission on any changes to the exterior of the building, from remodeling to demolition.

ODOT has already started working with the landmarks commission. Bill Olsen, a real estate broker and vice chair of the Bend Landmarks Commission, said the most likely outcome is that ODOT will cover the cost to move the house to another location. As part of the environmental review, ODOT had to research whether the project would impact historic sites, Olsen said, and “the Nels Anderson house was identified as one of those cultural elements that needed to be saved.”

Olsen said ODOT asked him to help the agency through the process of deciding what to do with the house.

“The Nels Anderson property, the house itself, is kind of a unique situation that they will deal with at some point,” Olsen said. “We just have to make sure when they do, that the landmarks commission is aware what they’re up to.”