Family to manage La Roche properties

SHARON — A Sharon resident who had an outsized impact on the village of Salisbury, Elaine La Roche, died on Aug. 25, 2019, at the age of 70. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer, with which she had been diagnosed two years earlier. 

Most people had no idea that she was ill, noted her daughter, Eve La Roche, who is now handling her mother’s properties here, with assistance from her older sister, Felicia La Roche Donovan. La Roche is also survived by her son, Nicolas La Roche Donovan. 

For the most part, Eve La Roche said in an interview last week, her mother’s properties will remain in the family. “Nothing is changing. Everything will remain as it was before,” she said. 

La Roche had owned several businesses in Salisbury and had said at one point that she hoped by owning them to help preserve the rural, old-fashioned charm of the village center. She owned the Salisbury Pharmacy, adding more general merchandise as well as small luxuries, until turning it over to Peter D’Aprile last year, who had been her managing pharmacist before buying the Kent Pharmacy from her. The family maintains ownership of the pharmacy building, as well as the nearby Passports gift shop and its building, which will continue under the management of Christopher Baetz; and, across the street, the Eliza Peet building, home of the Sweet William’s Coffee Shop and Bakery.                                      

One of La Roche’s most notable properties was her own Lion Rock farm, in Sharon at the Salisbury border. In addition to being a notable residence, visible from Route 41, it has also been the host property for many years for the annual Trade Secrets Rare Plant and Garden Antiques Sale, which benefits Women’s Support Services in Sharon; and to many celebrations and weddings. 

Eve La Roche said that the property will remain in the family and that the 2020 Trade Secrets sale will be held at the farm on May 16, as planned. 

La Roche grew up in New Jersey, the daughter of immigrant parents. Her father was from Haiti, her mother was from France. 

“She was a first-generation American, her father was an engineer and her mother was a teacher,” La Roche said. “Community was deeply important to her. She wanted to give back and spent her life doing it. She cared very much about people and businesses here and the community.”

La Roche was described in an article following her death in the Financial Times (FT) as “blunt” and “severely straightforward.” It was her intelligence, her clarity and her strength that helped her to become one of the most successful women on Wall Street, and one of the most knowledgeable finance experts on China. She was the head of China International Corporation (CICC), the first U.S.-China joint venture investment bank, from 1997 to 2001, according to the FT, and continued to consult with businesses in China and the U.S. until her death. 

La Roche bought her first Connecticut property in Norfolk in the 1980s and moved to Salisbury several years later.  She purchased Lion Rock in 1997.

La Roche brought her business acumen to her Northwest Corner businesses, where she was very much a presence, tidying up the stacks of newspapers and magazines at the Salisbury Pharmacy and greeting visitors such as Martha Stewart to the Trade Secrets sale on her farm. 

“People don’t necessarily know that she continued to invest her own money into her businesses here even if they were not making money. She wanted to keep them going, to support the towns and the community and to make sure that people remained employed,” her daughter said. 

“She has left me to run the businesses and I will keep them in the manner in which they had been handled. There will be no changes.”

La Roche was also an investor in The Lakeville Journal Co.

Eve La Roche is a resident of New York City, where she works for J.P. Morgan. 

Memorial services for Elaine La Roche were private but a celebration of her life will be held at a later date. 

Memorial donations in her name may be sent to the Salisbury Visiting Nurse Association, the Housatonic Child Care Center in Salisbury or the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon.