Bungy Hedley, who charmed several generations in San Pedro with her beachcombing tales of growing up on the sands below the south-facing ocean bluffs, has died. She was 89.

Friends and family will gather at 11 a.m. Aug. 27 to bid farewell to Hedley at The Cove (White Point/Royal Palms) in San Pedro, where Hedley spent the days of her youth. There will be hula dancers, Bungy stories, and a chance to talk about Hedley’s life.

The location is appropriate: In a less-regulatory era and a story right out of Hollywood, her family built a house out of driftwood on the beach where they lived. They had to leave when the U.S. entered World War II and the house, unofficially appropriated in later years by surfers, eventually was destroyed in a fire.

Hedley was among San Pedro’s best-known and colorful personalities, the author of “View from the Top of the Mast” and other books.

The tales the 1952 San Pedro High School graduate recounted of a simpler time quickly became part of the coastal community’s lore.

The family, for example, built their house using materials they collected from the beach.“What a magical place, with 2,000 feet of waterfront, right on the Pacific Ocean,” she wrote in her book “View From the Top of the Mast,” published in 2008. “We all pitched in to help Daddy build our house from materials found on the beach. At the end of a hard day’s work, we climbed into sleeping bags in front of a crackling, colorful fire. We watched the stars twinkle through the swaying palm fronds above, as the moon rose over the cliff, pouring its light all over the ocean. We fell asleep to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks on the beach.”

The 1954 movie “Return to Treasure Island,” starring Tab Hunter, used shots of the family’s home and did much of the filming on the beach where they lived.

“It’s a really bad movie,” Hedley said years later. “It’s cheesy.”

But although it wasn’t a Hollywood classic, Hedley considered the movie an important piece of her family’s remarkable history.

Life Magazine, meanwhile, featured a story on the family with this headline: “Beachcombing Business: California Family Makes Fortune Out of Flotsam.”

As for her beachcomber father, Eli, he operated a successful trading post on La Cienega Boulevard back in the day, attracting a number of Hollywood stars interested in what he had to sell.

Hedley, who had lived in several places throughout her life, died on June 25 — just a few months before what would have been her 90th birthday — in Ledbetter, Texas, at the home of her daughter and son-in-law, Ballan and Dan Keen. Hedley’s sister, Ba (pronounced “Bay”), still lives in San Pedro.

She was born on Nov. 11, 1934, in Oklahoma.

“She was a force of nature,” said good friend Peggy Lindquist of San Pedro, the former owner of The Corner Store.

Shortly after Lindquist bought The Corner Store, she began getting besieged with requests for local book signing events.

No more, she finally told her staff about the many requests.

“I was inundated by nearly every author,” Lindquist said. “But while I was out shopping one day, (Hedley) left her book on my desk and when I started looking through it, I thought, ‘I’ve got to know this lady.’ And we were the best of friends from then on.”

The book was filled with San Pedro history, as well as Hedley’s own family story. The signing — at The Corner Store — drew throngs of people.

Hedley’s formal name was Lady Weldon Hedley, and she was the third of four Hedley girls. The family moved to the area from Oklahoma and lived initially in a rental house for $10 a month at the top of Royal Palms, where a parking booth stands now.

The family, according to Keen, discovered that the government owned the beach property below and managed somehow to acquire a lease. It was, Hedley said later, like living on a tropical island.

“They slept outside with sleeping bags and blankets,” Keen said. “My mom said that was her favorite time.”

Her father soon developed a beachcombing business that supported the family.

While money was always tight, Bungy’s daughter said, her mom’s smile and upbeat attitude charmed most everyone she came into contact with.

“She was a bright light,” Keen said.

Among the celebrities who visited their beach home over the years were Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart and Rudy Vallee.

She also went to prom with the future Perry Mason.

“Raymond Burr was a regular (visitor) at the house and was friends with the whole family,” Keen said. “She didn’t have a (prom) date and asked if he’d go with her.”

Burr, in his pre-”Perry Mason” days but already a somewhat known actor appearing in westerns, requested a formal, proper invitation from Hedley, which she provided — and he accepted. He never left her side, despite being quite the headline attraction among all the girls at the dance, Keen said.

When she was 18, Hedley signed up to help crew a sailboat and went to sea, with crewing stints to follow from California to Hawaii, Tahiti and beyond — a daring job for a young woman in those days.

“‘View From the Top of the Mast,’” said the description of her book on Amazon, “is a humorous tale of Bungy’s first twenty-two years of over seven decades of a life filled with the joy of living. Bungy says this book is dedicated to the reader who has a certain sense of adventure that is crying to get out.”

With the advent of the U.S. involvement in World War II, the family had to move from the beachfront property and landed in Orange County, where they had one of the early storefronts inside Disneyland, selling nautical items.

Over the years, she moved and traveled to Tahiti, Fiji, Maui, Puerto Rico, Florida, Connecticut, the Mojave Desert and finally to Texas.

But it was in San Pedro where Hedley, a gifted storyteller, fell in love with the sea, embarking on sailing adventures that began in 1937.

She lived life in a burst of energy, and, with a big smile, was always up for the next new adventure.

Hedley moved to Bandera, Texas, with her husband, Edward “Ted” Grant, and their four children in 1975 to manage the Lost Valley Resort, according to an obituary that appeared in the Fayette County Record.

They later owned the Bandera General Store, a tourist stop, and The Little River Ranch cabins that were destroyed in a flood in 1978.

Hedley and daughter Ballan later established a smaller tourist favorite, the General Store, which she ran for more than 20 years.

While in Texas, Hedley wrote a weekly column for the local newspaper and was active in a number of social clubs, assisting on the Ledbetter Volunteer Fire Department and the Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center.

Hedley was married a few times during her long life and most recently had exchanged vows with Roland Eberhardt, an old friend from San Pedro High who had been smitten with her.

Earlier in the 2000s, they lived in a bungalow not far from San Pedro’s The Corner Store — Eberhardt built a front gate from an old boat for his wife — and among more recent books penned by Hedley was one detailing the history of White Point following the Paseo Del Mar landslide in November 2011.

Hedley is survived by daughters Ballen Elizabeth KeKaihoku Keen of Fayette County, Texas, and Hedley “Dede” Pelletier of Oak Ridge, Tennessee; sons Seward Burt Grant of Santa Barbara, Larry “Tuck” Hartshorn of Felton; a sister, Charlotte “Ba” Hedley of San Pedro; and six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.