Disneyland In Your Backyard
Posted: March 31, 2023 | Source: naples.floridaweekly.comMichael Kittredge started making candles as a teenager and selling them to friends and family. One of his first products was a Christmas candle he made for his mother on the family stove out of his melted crayons and a wick from a shoelace. Within a few years, he had opened his first Yankee Candle Shop in his hometown of South Hadley, Massachusetts. The business expanded to become the wildly successful Yankee Candle Company. Kittredge cashed out in 1998, selling 90% of his company for $500 million. With his death in 2019, the Kittredge estate his son described as “like having Disneyland in the backyard” is for sale at $23 million.