Friendly's Founder Building Replica of Monticello as 'Swan Song'

S. Prestley Blake has given construction workers some extra incentives to make sure his latest project is complete before November.

Blake, the 99-year-old co-founder of Friendly’s Ice Cream, is spending an estimated $6 million to build a copy of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello just down the street from his home in Somers, according to the Hartford Courant.

Blake told the Courant that the project is his “ swan song.”

“You know what a swan song is? It’s the last song that a swan sings before it dies,” he told the Courant. “I might be dead next year. And I’ve got a bonus for the builder: If he finishes it before I die, he gets a big bonus. So he’s pushing and pushing.”

Blake turns 100 in November and is hoping the project is complete in September. He plans on selling it to a private buy who can afford to maintain it and Blake will interview potential customers, according to the Courant.

The house is patterned after Jefferson’s mansion and the Courant reporters that the 10,000-square-foot house is slightly smaller than the 11,000-square-foot original, but the front of the building looks remarkably similar in just about every other respect.

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Pictured is Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello (Photo credit: www.monticello.org).