Stewart Prestley Blake was born in Jersey City, NJ, on November 26, 1914, the son of Herbert Prestley Blake and Ethel (Stewart) Blake. He grew up in Springfield, where his father worked for the watch maker Standard Electric Time Company; his mother was an automobile aficionado who encouraged his children’s fascination with cars. He bought a Ford Model T when he was 16, using the proceeds from the sale of newspapers. (Another brother, Hollis, died at age 2).
Mr. Blake attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, for a year before returning to Springfield to open his ice cream shop with his brother Curtis.
The Blake brothers closed the store during World War II to join the war effort. Mr. Blake started working for what is now Westinghouse Electric Corporation, tracking elusive electronic equipment and handing it over to war makers. (Curtis Blake served in the Army Air Forces in Britain.)
After selling the Friendly in the 1970s, Mr. Blake traveled the world in a Concorde sailboat and jet and cultivated his classic car collection, which at its peak included about two dozen Rolls-Royces. One of them, he wrote, appeared in Liza Minnelli’s film “Tell me you love me, Junie Moon” (1970), in which he made a small appearance as a driver.
Mr. Blake celebrated his 100th birthday in 2014 by building a modernized replica of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia plantation, in Somers, Connecticut. Costing nearly $ 8 million to build, the mansion was sold at auction for about $ 2.1 million in 2016.
Their first two marriages, with Della Deming and Setsu Matsukata, ended in divorce.
Mr. Blake died in a hospital in Stuart, where he lived. In addition to his son, he leaves his wife, Helen Blake; a sister, Betsy Melvin; a daughter, Nancy Yanakakis; several stepchildren; 16 grandchildren and stepchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
“I started small, worked hard and was very successful beyond my wildest dreams,” Mr. Blake ruminated at the end of his memoirs. “I left the ice cream market and was sitting well until I had to get off the couch and go back to the fight. This battle is over. I am 96 years old and I am officially retired. It might be.”