Casa Lane
Casa Lane is the nickname of Jane Lane's family home, given by her in the episode "Fire!" ("So, shall we expect you back at Casa Lane tonight?"). It is one of the main settings of Daria, along with Lawndale High, the Morgendorffer household, and Pizza King. Casa Lane also appears as "La Casa Lane" on the "Virtual Lawndale" map on the Daria portion of the MTV website (location #2). The term has been seized upon and widely adopted by fanfic writers and fans, so much so that the number of fanfics using that phrase is beyond counting.
Exterior and Surroundings[edit]
The house appears to be an unremarkable, pale yellow, two-story clapboard home with attached two-car garage and a large treelike metal (?) sculpture in the front yard. A large external chimney rises on the left side of the house, as one faces the front. The structure has a basement and an attic. Daria writes in The Daria Diaries that the property also has an "underground ceramic bunker" with a "temperamental kiln" (used by Amanda Lane), but it is unclear if the kiln is in the home's basement or in a separate structure.
In The Daria Diaries ("Welcome to Lawndale"), the home is shown near the end of a dead-end suburban street, about two blocks from a two-track railroad line. A gas station and a store or industrial/office building are within easy walking distance. Rows of trees screen the house within a one-block radius on three sides, giving it a secluded feel. Postcards near the end of The Daria Diaries reveal that the address for the home is 111 Howard Drive, Lawndale. (The state and zip code are always hidden.) The basement of the home is known to have a pottery wheel, a washing machine and dryer, and equipment for Mystik Spiral's practice sessions.
Most of the time, per The Daria Database ("While We're Away..."), the house is inhabited only by Trent and Jane Lane, their two cats Zachary and Taylor, and an occasional group of "squatters" who break in and live in the basement. Sometimes Jane's siblings or their children also break into and stay in the basement, so they have to check who's down there before calling the police - though the Lanes apparently let the squatters be most of the time, with Vincent and Amanda believing they're "harmless". The home is in some disrepair and has been visited at least once by the local health inspector. The Lane parents are clearly irresponsible, frequently leaving the home (and their children) for months at a time without warning.
Backyard[edit]
The backyard of the home is surrounded by a board fence and cluttered with various art project (or junk, not sure which), including an unstable gazebo that becomes the focus of the episode, "Art Burn." "Art Burn" shows most of the backyard and its contents in detail, including an old tractor, a wizard's globe (ornamental reflective ball), and the old and new gazebos. It is unclear whether the new gazebo was torn down at the episode's end.
Given the gazebo's location in a back corner of the yard, and the angle at which Jane is shown videotaping Mystik Spiral, the gazebo appears to be in the left rear of the yard, with the opening aimed toward the middle of the back of the Lane home.
Internal Layout[edit]
Jane, Trent, and at least Penny among their other siblings have bedrooms on the second floor of the home. The first floor has at least a living room and kitchen, both seen on various Daria episodes. The kitchen is dominated by the refrigerator, an appliance which hasn't been cleaned in ages and is viewed with severe distrust; eat from it, and there's a good chance you'll be ill afterward.
The basement, which makes its first appearance in Road Worrier, seems to be the center of all kinds of artistic activities, being used as a rehearsal space for Mystik Spiral and as Amanda's pottery studio. The space is cluttered with stuff, such as bicycle parts, a barbecue, a disassembled bed, cardboard boxes, mannequin limbs and even a roof suspended mechanical wench.
The stairway to the second floor is immediately in front of anyone coming in the single front door.
Jane's room is frequently shown on Daria episodes. Trent's room appears less often but always looks the same: highly cluttered. Penny's room appears only in the episode "Fire!"
Other details of the interior of the house can be gleaned at random. Jane mentions that the home has more than one fireplace (probably two, one above the other on the left side of the home) in "Lane Miserables."
Disrepair[edit]
Various episodes of Daria have shown the place is a bit of a mess, in particular Trent's room and especially the refrigerator, spoken of in fearful tones by several characters. "The Daria Database" also fills out that much of the house is in disrepair and needs constant fixing: there are damaged wires that can knock out the electricity, the oven has broken & cooking has to be done in Amanda Lane's kiln, and so on.
"Database" also reveals that squatters have been known to set up camp in the Lane's basement.
Trivia[edit]
- The Daria Diaries revealed that, when Daria first visited the house, Jane got her to "help barricade the front door in case someone tried to foreclose on the house": her parents had forgotten to leave any mortgage payments when they'd left the country. While the book doesn't state if anyone did try to foreclose, a number of fanfics have taken the view that there was a foreclosure attempt on that very day; several alternate universe fics have Jane and Trent losing the house because Daria didn't vist that day (most notably John Lane).
- It has been noted on a French Daria website (name now lost) that the closets in Jane Lane's room change in appearance from episode to episode, sometimes having racks of clothing and sometimes a drawing desk, piles of clothing, or other items. This is an animation error similar to the many such mistakes that make the Morgendorffer home so unusual (see "The House on Space-Time Lane.")
The Lawndale map showing the Lane home in The Daria Diaries neglects to show the garage and driveway.
In "Monster," the mailbox is shown set some distance (10-20 feet?) back from the street. Also, the board fence around the backyard does not appear in views of the house shown in "Monster."
External Links[edit]
Virtual Lawndale map on the MTV website (Wayback)
La Chambre de Jane French article about Jane's room (Wayback)