IT might look like a lovely bay window, but it’s really a garage door. Picture: Beausoleil Architects. Source: Supplied

Not on the street though — they want you to drive straight in to what appears to be a bay window and park your car inside.

The bottom level of the terrace-style house has been converted to a parking garage, but to retain the streetscape the owners came up a sneaky way to make the facade still look like a house.

With the “bay window’’ open the entrance to the parking garage is revealed. Picture: Beausoleil Architects Source: Supplied

Looks just like a normal house with a downstairs bay window. Source: Supplied

From the street the ground level looks just like any normal house, but what appears to be a bay window is a cleverly disguised folding garage door.

Architect Robert Boles of Beausoleil Architects was tasked with the cover up job by building owner Corey McMills who came up with the idea.

Since then others seem to have cottoned on to the idea.

“We’ve since seen evidence of other people doing similar designs, but to us it seemed to be unique at the time,’’ Mr Boles said.

“The most difficult part was supporting the structure of the building overhead while cutting away the facade, as the bay walls originally supported the entire facade of the building.’’

The building is in San Francisco which has very stringent rules about protecting historic architectural resources.

“Proposals to remodel any structure over 50 years old have to be reviewed by the preservation planners,’’ Mr Boles said.

“They were actually delighted to see such a creative use of technology and have even referred other project applicants to our firm. We seem to be known as the garage door guys.....not necessarily how we want to be remembered by history!’’