For years, Newport neighbors who glimpsed her lone figure on the Cliffwalk at dusk, wondered about the beautiful, but mysterious Miss Turner. With homes in Newport and Philadelphia, they supposed she was wealthy. But why did she still dress in Victorian clothing? And what was she doing all those hours - all alone - in Cliffside, her Newport summer cottage?

After her death in 1948, there were startling answers to these questions. The stunning story of her life hung on every wall of her house. More than 1,000 self-portraits were found ringing the rooms and spilling out of every closet and shelf. This enigmatic woman had spent more than 40 years painting thousands of paintings, the majority of which were self-portraits.

The executors of Beatrice Turner's estate made a tragic decision. When no one stepped forward to claim - or buy - the some 3,000 paintings, the executors had them carted to the Newport dump and destroyed - 12 truckloads of paintings representing her life's work.

Miss Turner's neighbor, attorney Nathan Fleischer, rescued 70 of these paintings from the massive bonfire at the dump. He later toured the nation, telling the story and showing the work of this sensitive woman who, repressed by her parents and the Victorian Age, asserted herself on canvas.

In 1950, LIFE magazine brought her story and her art to public view for the first time. Later some of her prodigious diaries were discovered. While they shed new light on some aspects of her life and revealed her to be both articulate and sensitive, they also raised new, unresolved issues in what has become a story of legendary proportions, veiled in impenetrable mystery, like her beloved Newport cliffs, in an eerie fog at the break of day.

Beatrice is still very much a presence at Cliffside - and a very popular one at that. More than 100 images of her artworks - mostly self-portraits - adorn the walls of the inn today. They provide the inn with its main decorative theme and give it a distinctive look of its own - unlike any other inn anywhere.

Her former bedroom, and one of many painting areas, is today a guestroom -- one of the most popular at Cliffside. The door panels in Beatrice's Room are still adorned with the flowers she painted on them. The large State Room with its two dominant bay windows and exotic bathing salon, stand in tribute to the artist.

In 1989, the Cliffside Inn was opened by Winthrop Baker Jr., after he did an extensive renovation and refurbishment of Beatrice's Victorian Manor House. The former TV executive was fascinated by Beatrice's story, and spent the next 8-years seaching for her missing art collection, and for clues to the unanswered questions about her enigmatic life. He found a number of pieces of Beatrice's artwork scattered around the country.

Baker eventually teamed together with historical biographer Sheldon Bart, who chronicled the quest to understand Beatrice and find her missing artwork. The result is "Beatrice: The Untold Story of a Legendary Woman of Mystery".

As the book's promotional material announced: "With all the elements of great fiction and the plot of a Hollywood classic, Beatrice is, astonishingly all true. Beatrice is the story of that quest, the extraordinary woman who inspired it, and is the story-behind-the-story. Writer Sheldon Bart, combining the skills of a master storyteller, reporter and detective, takes readers on an incredible journey that ends with the unsuspected truth about this mysterious woman, who led a life she 'did not choose.'"

From the Prologue "People talked, as people will, and wherever she went, Beatrice Turner heard the whispers, but never raised her voice. She was, in truth, a highly intelligent, gifted, sensitive soul, a single woman and an artist who lived and worked in a restrictive age. The nature of the body of work to which she dedicated herself was largely unsuspected, so that the truth, ultimately, was stranger than the gossipmongers might have supposed. For this reason, although she died in obscurity, she has, almost since the moment of her death, continued to fascinate those acquainted with the facts of her life."

The book contains a number of pieces of Beatrice's artwork and is available from the Legendary Inns of Newport for $24.94. Book Details.

Read An Excerpt From "Beatrice"