FORMER Canberra Liberals leader Alistair Coe and his wife Yasmin are hoping to enjoy more of the sweet life after dishing out $1.7m for an award-winning chocolate shop over the border.
On Sunday (May 16), the couple won the auction for the Robyn Rowe Chocolates business, located on a Murrumbateman property that’s 9.6ha in size and has a separate four-bedroom cottage on site, where they will be moving into with their two children later this year.
The property came on the market when its owner, Robyn Rowe, 79, last month announced she was stepping away from her award-winning chocolate empire after 20 years of making chocolate.
Ms Coe, an accountant and a self-taught chocolatier, who runs a successful chocolate-bar business called “Sweet Pea & Poppy” with her mother, paid tribute to Ms Rowe and her family’s work.
“Robyn and her family have created a beautiful space and I want to honour her legacy in what I do moving forward,” Ms Coe said.
“I’ll have plenty more to say about the shape of the business down the track.”
Ms Coe won’t take over the store until the middle of the year but said the couple were “thrilled” for a new chapter in their lives.
“CityNews” understands that Mr Coe won’t be involved in the day-to-day running of the business but will help out behind the scenes and during busy times.
Mr Coe, who led the Canberra Liberals to an election loss in October – the party’s sixth loss in a row – announced his retirement from politics in early February, marking the end of a 12-year career in the ACT Legislative Assembly.
In the lead up to the election, Mr Coe was a passionate advocator for freezing rates in the ACT, labelling them too expensive and accusing ACT Labor of pushing people over the border into NSW with their high rates.
Since his exit from politics, Mr Coe has told “CityNews” it’s not something he would go back to.
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