About Us
About Us:
Julie and Tim moved to Bend in 1978. Julie’s first job was in a rock shop called Cascade Lapidary. Tim did silver and gold repair work part time before starting a landscape material business in Bend. Being Central Oregon locals, they benefited from their many talented lapidary friends over the years. These friends include; Fred Adams, Judy Elkins, the Quant family, and their dear friend Howard Ball. Always owning horses or mules and being in the mountains year round, Julie and Tim have hunted agate and jasper as well as winter meat extensively in Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Idaho.
For a very long time they have enjoyed a close relationships with Johann a German trained Machinist and also Master Machinist Ray Nelson. With their help, many years ago Tim and Julie launched CigarBoxRock Lapidary Equipment Company. In the early years in Bend all of the old timers kept the best of the best high grade agate in cigar boxes. Thus the name stuck in Tim and Julie’s minds. Memories of Carey Plume, Priday Plume, Blue Biggs, Deschutes Jasper, and the list goes on and on for rocks and gems of Oregon. CigarBoxRock Lapidary specializes in the three largest vintage rock saw manufacturers; Frantom, Highland Park Manufacturing, and Nelson Saw Works. CigarBoxRock ship saws into all of the lower 48 states in the United States and are purchased by some of the finest Lapidaries in the world.
Tim & Julie
Tim Larocco
About Our Location
Historic Nels Andersen Farmhouse
We are co-located with Instant Landscaping, our office is in the Historic Nels Andersen Farmhouse. Nels was Danish immigrant who came to the United States in 1906. He homesteaded in 1915. He married his wife Lillian and named his Dairy the Lilly Dairy. In 1929 the couple built the English Tudor styled home in the middle of their Homestead. They operated their dairy until after World War II when they sold the property to the Bradetich family.
Tim and Julie Larocco purchased the farmhouse and completed a restoration of the house in 2002, winning an award for Outstanding Historical Renovation and Preservation. Fast forward to 2022 and the house was in the path of the Hwy 97 Realignment project. The Laroccos once more saved their historic home by moving it to its new location, 700 yds north of the original site to property that was also part of the Andersen Homestead.