Norie Burnet, a patient woman with a stubborn green thumb, strolls along the natural path of her Bon Air backyard.

Hairy green moss covers much of Burnet's 4 acres. It creeps around rocks and streams. 

It tickles the toes.  It soothes the soul.

"They call it the cathedral in the woods," Burnet said.

Tucked away in the shade on Montaigne Drive, Burnet's garden has become a local must-see spot in this quaint Chesterfield County community. Eden Woods, as it is known, has been featured in several national and local magazines, making this retired fifth-grade teacher well-known in little Bon Air.

"You have to go see the moss lady," Shirley Hast, who works at Bon Air's Wild Orchid Antiques Inc., said.

The story is a humorous one.

"When the moss first started, I tried to get rid of it," Burnet said. "But it kept coming back anyway. I finally gave in."

The garden is a little surprise in a rambling residential neighborhood.

A lot of places are like that in Bon Air, where people have come to expect the unexpected. Located just outside the Richmond city limits, Bon Air is a village community that through the years has maintained its historic charm.

Talk about idyllic. Bon Air once had an ice-cream shop named Mayberry. Some call the community Richmond's original suburb, first established as a summer resort by a group of Richmonders associated with Southern Railway.

Nowadays, purple Victorian houses and rainbow-colored goats have replaced the creamy Mayberry sherbet.

"Bon Air is a state of mind," said Joan Girone, a local Realtor who once represented the Midlothian District, which includes Bon Air, on the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors. "People say where does it begin and where does it end. People really don't know the boundaries."

Bon Air has some of the most magnificent homes around, Girone said. Plenty of spots, including the Hazen Memorial Library, which dates to 1902, have become tourist spots.

Girone said it would be wonderful if residents could one day display local artifacts in the now closed library that was built as a tribute to the Rev. James K. Hazen, pastor of Bon Air Presbyterian Church for 17 years until his death in 1902.

These days, it sits quiet.

People who call Bon Air home are amazed by the architecture that surrounds them.

"I still get nostalgic when I see those Victorian homes," said Martha Fraher, who has lived in Bon Air since 1960. "This community has grown by leaps and bounds, but it still has that village feel. We still use Bon Air as our address."

They used to say the air was better in Bon Air. In French, Bon Air means "good air."

Now, the locals say just about everything is better here.

The moss is greener, the homes prettier and the goats, just lovely.

Thanks to St. Michael's Episcopal Church, fiberglass goats abound in Bon Air.

One, named Goatguin, stands beautifully painted on the roof of Judge Fred and Lisa Rockwell's Buford Road home. Saks Fifth Avenue at Stony Point Fashion Park donated the goats to the church last year.

It's one of the little things that make Bon Air such a friendly, funny little place.

Some of the other quirky but beautiful attributes include the old post office and the Old Bon Air Hotel, which has been converted into apartments.

But not everything in Bon Air is rooted in history. Some places, such as The Butcher at Bon Air are of a more recent vintage. It opened in May.

Peter Woods, the head butcher, began his career working for his grandfather as a "lard boy" at Paoli Farmer's Market in Pennsylvania. He would cut the fat off meat.

"It's a dying art," he said.

There's a seafood store in the center and a consignment shop. Make sure to look in the dresser drawers at the shop, where you will find everything from pendants to postcards to silverware.

Across the street, there's Buford Road Shopping Center, home to the Buford Road Pharmacy, which sells everything from lift La-Z-Boy chairs to posh pet essentials to Caldwell & Massey hand cream.

"We don't carry food," said pharmacist David Williams. "Other than that, we sell a little bit of everything."

Visitors to the pharmacy should also pay a visit to the Wild Orchid at one end of the shopping center. It's home to plenty of neat finds and sparkly chandeliers at reasonable prices.

Locals swear by Joe's Inn, the neighborhood good-eats spot, which caters to the business crowd by day and families at night. Joe's, a spinoff of the original Joe's Inn in the Fan District, has a killer spinach-salad lunch special served with chicken and almonds.

But for the most part, this restaurant, for the few who haven't been, delivers great big portions and lots of yummy carbs.

Many call Joe's Inn the local Bon Air watering hole.

If that's the case, Bocky Talbott, 49, said Bon Air Dance + Pilates Studio "is like the town well where you meet."

It's also the place where you can go work off what you ate at Joe's.

Talbott, one of a handful of women who hurried into the studio for a pilates class recently, is one of several groupies who swear by the Buford Road studio with the big Bikini Boot Camp sign out front.

They come for the camaraderie and for the promise that one day they might look like Robin Friedersdorf, studio owner. Friedersdorf proudly lifts up her shirt and points to her abs as proof that pilates works.

"Just because you are in your 40s and have four children, you don't have to be slouchy-looking," she said.

Many who take classes at the studio send their children and grandchildren there, too.

According to Dolly Carroll, the place where dozens of little girls from Bon Air learned to plié and rond de jambe used to be a firehouse.

Carroll, 61, knows a lot about Bon Air.

She's lived in the village since 1969.

"It's grown up into just a lot of little neighborhoods," she said. "But it never changes."