Her successful dodging of the press amused some local law-enforcement officers, who had watched dozens of reporters camped outside the prison for more than a week.

Federal inmate No. 55170-054 said on her Web site she was looking forward to returning to work in March and enjoying "many brighter days ahead."

Like all new inmates, the 63-year-old multimillionaire was photographed, fingerprinted and strip-searched upon her arrival, and her personal items were inventoried, said Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in Washington.

Stewart — who built a homemaking empire with her eye for the finer things in life — will sleep on a bunk bed in a building that houses 60 women and contains only two showers.

"She's going to have to shower in an area that 60 other women are trying to use as well," said Ron Rubottom, a leader of the guards' union. "There'll be four or five toilets. Two sinks. She has to share a blow dryer, a curling iron."

After being interviewed by prison staff and briefed on the rules, new inmates undergo a two-week orientation, during which work assignments are made. Stewart will be eligible for jobs that pay 12 cents to 40 cents an hour. Inmates at Alderson typically rise about 6 a.m. and work most of the day.

Rubottom said an inmate's skills are often considered in making such assignments. "If an inmate has food-service background, obviously we will try to use that inmate in that area," he said.

The prison opened in 1927 about 270 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. Its inmates have included Billie Holiday, Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally and would-be presidential assassins Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore.

Stewart was convicted in March of lying to investigators about why she sold stock in a biotech company in 2001, just before its price plunged. She had been allowed to remain free while she appeals her conviction, but she asked to begin serving her time anyway, to help more quickly remove the cloud of uncertainty hanging over her company.

After she gets out, she will have to serve five months of confinement at home.

"While I am away, my updates here will be less frequent, if not altogether impossible," Stewart said on her Web site. "But please know this change is only an unfortunate reflection of my current circumstances, and in no way diminishes my commitment to my life's work or to the friends, colleagues, customers and supporters who make it possible."

Stewart has said she will miss her pets during her stay in prison but hopes to be free in time for spring gardening.

While behind bars, Stewart will forgo five months of her $900,000 yearly base pay from her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. Her contract says the company will resume paying her when she gets out of prison.

What effect Stewart's prison stay will have on her company remains to be seen. Shares of the company fell 57 cents, or 3.4 percent, to close at $16.02 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange. It had spiked as high as $19.60 last month, but is still well above its 52-week low of $8.25.

The prospect of Stewart's arrival in Alderson led five students to skip morning classes at the Beckley Beauty Academy. Stewart was already inside the prison when the students arrived in their beautician smocks.