The Prancing Skiltaire

The Prancing Skiltaire is the given name of a private residence in Garden Grove, Orange County, California, owned by Mark Merlino. It is host to a group of furries that share their common interests in the furry fandom, and also have been host to a variety of public events in the past years: annual holiday get-togethers, ConFurence and Califur staff meetings, filking concerts, and more recently, has taken over the previous role of monthly parties that were hosted by the wildly popular Rick's Café Terrestrienne, which were just located a few blocks east until Rick and Tess Calhoun moved to the state of Washington, USA in mid 2005.

House party
Guests of the monthly house party are asked to provide their own food and munchies. A barbecue is available in the backyard. Parties are usually held on the second Saturday of each month.

History
The name of the house was modeled after traditional Old English tradition: e.g. "Red Lion Inn", "The Boar's Head", etc. which signifies a place of abode and commune to weary travelers. Skiltaire are a species created by Mark for a personally-made RPG.

The house is host to many furries and has been, in the past, commune for those furs either displaced from their homes and given residence for rent or exchange of apprenticeship in Mark's network communication company, Lantana, Ltd.

The five-bedroom house has primarily furry-themed decor. Most of the walls and shelving space is decked out with original and re-created animation cels of past furry movies, Japanese and Chinese manga, original artwork by various furry artists, an extensive collection of DVDs, CDs, music, and offbeat movies, a large collection of plushies, memorabilia, collectibles, statuettes, etc.

Tiger's Den BBS
Tiger's Den BBS was a furry-themed bulletin board system which ran from 1983 to 1996, before the popularization of the Internet. The servers were located in the far east wing of the house. As a result of this and Mark's professional skills as a networking engineer, the house was rigged with a more-than-adequate Ethernet network, which was ahead of its time for a personal residence before the popularization of residential LANs.

Firstlight Internet Services
The Skiltaire has a history with Firstlight Internet Services. Firstlight was/is a full-service ISP, once primarily based out of Orange County. Neil Whelchel, its owner, was a long-time resident at the house, and consequently, partners in maintaining the communication networks provided at ConFurence, along with Tigerden Internet Services. Many of the residents of the house were given complimentary web space and email addresses, some of which are still in use today. The ISP hosted The Pride Lands MUCK.