When David Rauch and Kate Shaw, a couple of design and behavioral professionals working with firms such as Lucasfilm and Airbnb, painted their San Francisco Mission District Victorian a dark charcoal color, they liked the way it stood out amid its Neo-Spanish and modest 

Marina-style neighbors.

The former basement had been converted into a ragtag apartment, which they decided would better serve them as a garage. Since 1880s Victorians were not designed to accommodate a lugubrious garage door, they conversely wanted theirs to disappear.

So Rauch, an animator and a former product development leader at IDEO, devised a door made to look like a board-and-batten wall with a window to match the building’s original fenestration. Remotely operable, it swings out on giant custom hinges. Closed, it gives their 3-level home the illusion of yet another story.

Photos provided by Dav Ranch