Stewart Prestley Blake was born on November 26, 1914 in Jersey City, NJ, to Herbert Prestley Blake and Ethel (Stewart) Blake. He grew up in Springfield, where his father worked for the clock manufacturer Standard Electric Time Company; his mother was a car enthusiast who encouraged her sons’ fascination with cars. He bought a Model T Ford by the time he was 16, with income from a newspaper route. (Another brother, Hollis, died at the age of 2)
Mr. Blake attended Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. For a year before returning to Springfield to open his ice cream shop with his brother Curtis.
The Blake brothers closed the shop during World War II to participate in the war. Mr. Blake went to work for what is now called Westinghouse Electric Corporation, where he tracked down elusive electronic equipment and delivered it to wartime manufacturers. (Curtis Blake served in the Army Air Forces in Great Britain.)
After the sale of Friendly in the 1970s, Mr. Blake traveled the world by sailboat and Concorde jet, cultivating his collection of classic cars, which included about two dozen Rolls-Royces at its peak. One of them, he wrote, appeared in the Liza Minnelli film “Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon” (1970), in which he made a guest appearance as a driver.
Mr. Blake commemorated his 100th birthday in 2014 by building a modernized replica of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia plantation, in Somers, Conn. The mansion cost nearly $ 8 million to build and was sold at auction in 2016 for about $ 2.1 million.
His first two marriages, to Della Deming and Setsu Matsukata, ended in divorce.
Mr. Blake died in a hospital in Stuart, where he lived. Besides his son he is survived by his wife Helen Blake; a sister, Betsy Melvin; a daughter, Nancy Yanakakis; several stepchildren; 16 grandchildren and step-grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
“I started out small, worked hard and managed beyond my wildest dreams,” thought Mr. Blake at the end of his memoir. “I got out of the ice cream business and sat comfortably until I had to get off the couch and get back into battle. That battle is over. I am 96 and I am officially retired. Could be.”