Update 5 p.m.: Friendly’s celebrates 100th birthday of S. Prestley Blake : offers 5-cent ice cream cones Nov. 28.

SOMERS, Conn. — Friendly’s co-founder S. Prestley Blake has put his full-sized replica of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello up for sale for $6.5 million.

The sale was planned. Blake always said he would see the home, which is a modern, luxuriously appointed dwelling, upon its completion. But he won’t make money on the passion project he referred to as his “swan song.”

He plans to personally interview potential buyers in order to make sure they love the concept as much as he does and that they plan to help improve the community as he has tried to do. Blake always emphasized that it cost him closer to $8 million to build the home, and that he knew going in he would lose money on the deal.

The listing is with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, based in Old Lyme. Promotional materials for the house emphasize its modern creature comforts including seven bathrooms, most with walk-in showers done in custom tile.

Jefferson’s Monticello had five privies adjoining the main house.

Laplante Construction Inc. of East Longmeadow built the he 10,000-square-foot structure using hand-made brick from Virginia and following architectural drawings of Jefferson’s home. 

The location, 732 Hall Hill Road, is adjacent to Blake’s residence. He and his wife, Helen, were involved in the day-to-day construction.

The Blakes purchased the property from the estate of the late Gerald and Jeanne D’Amour. It was once the site of their home and the family chapel.

Material  for the eaves was  custom molded to look like the carved wooden soffits Jefferson used. The balustrades, decorative railings ringing the roof, are also designed to look like those at Monticello. The roof is a composite material made to  look like slate.

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs the actual Monticello in Charlottsville, Va., calls Monticello Jefferson’s “biographical masterpiece.” He designed and redesigned the mansion over his lifetime, starting with initial construction in 1769 when Jefferson was 26 years old.

Blake, who turns 100 this month, had a plaque made for the home with a  quote from a letter Jefferson wrote in a 1787 letter to George Gilmer:

“I am as happy no where else and in no other society, and all my wishes end, where I hope my days will end, at Monticello.”

Historians estimate that Jefferson spent about $100,461 to build Monticello over 28 years. The figure doesn’t counting goods and services bartered and traded or grown and gathered on site. It also doesn’t count the cost of feeding and clothing Jefferson’s slave labor, according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.

Adjusted for inflation from $1,800 dollars, the cost to build the original Monticello works out to about $1.3 million.