TROY — Heather LaVine, one half of a partnership that became a prime catalyst in the strong growth of the Troy restaurant scene over the past seven years, is leaving Clark House Hospitality, as the company she co-founded is now known.

In an email sent Monday morning to Clark House employees, LaVine said, “As you can imagine, the decision was far from an easy one, but I believe now is the right time.” She wrote that given the secure state of the company, with all of its component businesses showing growth over the past year, and with the strong leadership of its management team, she felt ready to leave. The businesses include the Lucas Confectionery wine bar and the restaurant Peck’s Arcade. All are in downtown Troy.

Reflecting on her experience with customers and staff, LaVine writes, “(E)very day I feel thankful, humble, and very, very lucky.”

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Now 42, LaVine said she does not yet have definite plans for her future. She believes it will continue to involve wine and/or hospitality in some manner, but adds, via email, that it will “definitely somewhere a little bit warmer than upstate NY.”

Her business partner and co-founder, Vic Christopher, said he is buying out LaVine’s stake in Clark House and will become the sole owner. He said he has agreements with his top managers for moving forward in expanded roles to assume responsibility of duties previously handled by LaVine.

“For the past decade, Heather has been my co-creator throughout so many business ventures,” Christopher said via email. “It’s been an amazing run, and I’m sad to see it come to an end, but we will remain friends forever.”

The pair met more than a decade ago when LaVine, a Queensbury native, and the Brooklyn-born Christopher both worked for the Tri-City Valley Cats baseball team in Troy. “We ended up together because we were the first people in the office every day with the ValleyCats, and we were the last people to leave," LaVine said in a 2017 interview. "And we respected that about each other.”

Read more: Christopher, LaVine talk highs, lows after 5 years in business

They left the ValleyCats, married in 2010 and soon started developing the Lucas Confectionery, named after a candy store that occupied the 12 Second St. building from the 1860s to 1951. It was later an insurance agency for 48 years.

Success was uncertain for a place originally conceived as a coffee bar during the day, an urban-rustic destination for boutique wine at night. LaVine said in the 2017 interview, “To me, with the original vision, it wasn’t even clear to me that this would be a full-time job for either one of us, let alone be a full-time job for both and to have close to 50 people on our team.”