Hôtel particulier

In French contexts an hôtel particulier is an urban "private house" of a grand sort. Whereas an ordinary maison was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a street, an hôtel particulier was often free-standing, and by the eighteenth century it would always be located entre cour et jardin, between the entrance court, the cour d'honneur, and the garden behind. Paris is not the only city with hôtels particuliers: see Hôtels of Montpellier, for instance.

The word hôtel represents the Old French hostel, which has developed a more specific modern English meaning. Cognates can be confusing: the modern usage in English of hotel denotes a commercial hotel accommodating travellers, a hostelry that is more ambitious than an inn. Modern French also applies hôtel to commercial hotels: confusingly the Hôtel de Crillon on the Place de la Concorde was built as an hôtel particulier and is today a hotel. The Hôtel des Invalides retains its early sense of a hospice for war wounded.

In French, a hôtel de ville or mairie is a town hall (and not a hotel), such as the Hôtel de Ville, Paris or the Hôtel de Ville de Montréal

Hôtel-Dieu ("hostel of God") is the old name given to the principal hospital in French towns, such as the Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune

Some Parisian hôtels particuliers with individual entries:

• Hôtel de Soubise
• Hôtel de Crillon
• Hôtel Lambert
• Hôtel Matignon
• Hôtel de Sens
• Hôtel de Rambouillet
• Hôtel Biron
• Hôtel d'Evreux
• Hôtel de Cluny
• Hôtel Carnavalet
• Hôtel de Salm
• Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière
• Hôtel Jacquemart-André