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 lover who encouraged her sons’ fascination with cars. He bought a Model T Ford at age 16 with a newspaper trail. (Another brother, Hollis, died at the age of 2.)
Mr. Blake attended Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. For a year.
The Blake brothers closed the store during World War II to take part in the war effort. Mr. Blake went to work for the current Westinghouse Electric Corporation. He tracked down elusive electronic equipment and delivered it to wartime manufacturers. (Curtis Blake served in the Army Air Forces in 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 at its peak included about two dozen Rolls-Royces. One of them, he wrote, appeared in the Liza Minnelli film “Tell Me That You Love Me, June Moon” (1970), in which he made a cameo appearance as a driver.
Mr. Blake commemorates his 100th birthday in 2014 by building a modernized replica of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia plantation, in Summers, Conn.
His first two marriages, with Della Deming and Setsu Matsukata, resulted in a divorce.
Mr. Blake died at a hospital in Stuart, where he lived. In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife, Helen Blake; a sister, Betsy Melvin; a daughter, Nancy Yanakakis; several stepchildren; 16 grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
“I started small, worked hard and succeeded beyond my wildest dreams,” said Mr. Blake chewed at the end of his memory. ‘I did not get the ice cream industry and sat pretty until I had to get off the couch and sit in the fight again. The battle is over. I’m 96 and am officially retired. Can be.”