Yep....took me over a year to figure that out! I kept looking at it thinking how wasteful. One day I decided I was going to mod it somehow and low and behold it magically swung up!
We store our bottled water, cokes, bags of potatoes, etc under there. It is amazing how much of a difference that makes.
The valence on my 19BH is also hinged at the top. If you lift up on the seat of the sofa, you can rotate up the valence. I've discovered if you then lower the seat against the valence, it will hold itself open.