London is famous for its terraced houses; in New York, they have brownstones. But for Parisians, the ultimate in city living has to be the hôtel particulier.

Translated as “private residence”, hôtels particuliers have covered many styles through the different architectural ages. But, for most people, the phrase evokes a secret world of ample, multi-storey domestic space amid the urban bustle.

I am in Paris to visit Philip Hawkes, owner of an eponymous estate agency, and to learn more. He and his wife Patricia have been selling French châteaux and Parisian apartments for more than 30 years, and have an enduring passion for old homes.

The classic Parisian hôtel particulier occupies a plot of 100 to 500 sq metres and has a distinctive floor plan. A carriage entrance on the street, often carrying a coat of arms, leads to a courtyard, around which is a U of buildings, including the main house (with several storeys) and its dépendances – stables, saddle rooms and concierge lodging. There may also be a garden behind the house away from the street.

The golden age of hôtels particuliers was during the 17th and 18th centuries, when people began to move out of the cramped city centre into homes built along the road to Versailles. Noble families with estates and titles in the country also started building residences in the city, clustered in the areas around Faubourg Saint-Germain and Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

In the mid 19th century, Napoleon III commissioned Baron Hausmann to transform Paris into the boulevarded splendour we recognise today, and hôtels particuliers conformed to changing styles. Likewise, in the 20th century, stables gave way to garages, while courtyards became more rare.

Another important factor in the evolution of hôtels particuliers was a shift in attitudes toward servants, says Georges Poisson, author of Histoire de l’Architecture de Paris. As the centuries passed, domestic staff were increasingly hidden from view via a back staircase serving a warren of service rooms.

Over time, some fine hôtels particuliershave been demolished, while others have been converted into apartments. Most have been turned to institutional use. Notable examples include the Hôtel de Cluny in the Quartier Latin, a 15th-century gothic mansion now housing the Musée de le Moyen Age, and the Hôtel de Sens, originally owned by the Archbishop of Sens and now a library dedicated to decorative and fine arts. With their light fortifications, these buildings were clearly designed to protect inhabitants from the street violence of the era.

The Picasso Museum is in the Hôtel Salé (Salted House), also known as the Hôtel Aubert de Fontenay, after Pierre Aubert, Lord of Fontenay, who built the house in the 1650s after becoming rich collecting salt tax. Hôtels are typically still called by the name of the illustrious family who once lived in them.

The first stop on my tour with the Hawkeses is a 1930s-era house with a stucco façade and colonnaded front porch in the leafy suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, next to the Bois de Boulogne. The owners, who asked not to be named, raised four boys in it. “We have had the space to give each son almost his own apartment within the house,” the father says.

He stands in the salon, looking out through French doors on to the back garden and adds: “The garden is excellent in the summer for entertaining.”

“Space,” Patricia Hawkes adds, “is the luxury of our time.”

The next house we visit is altogether more French: a three-storey stone corner house, built in 1910, with an enviable location. The garden is separated by only a fence from the Parc du champ de Mars, in which sits the Eiffel Tower. This house, with its panelled rooms on the ground floor and a stone balustraded third-floor balcony is currently on the market for €6.95m.

Next, we come to a 19th-century hôtel particulier in a gated square off the Avenue Foch, a grand boulevard that radiates from the Arc de Triomphe. Although not entirely decrepit, it is in need of a serious overhaul. It is on sale for €12m. Pre- restoration, the interior has an exquisite air of faded elegance. A hallway the size of most studio flats leads to a sweeping, stone staircase with ornately wrought iron banisters. From the spacious panelled rooms upstairs, one can look out through the bay window and gawp at the neighbours, including the king of Saudi Arabia and Singapore’s ambassador.

But if you can see the street, the street can see you. Even more private hôtels particuliers can be found in the area around Faubourg Saint-Germain.

Jean Pluyette owns just such a property, a neo-gothic house built on the site of the former stables and says he loves it for its silence and sense of retreat from the city. When friends come to visit, “they ask me if this is my country weekend house,” he says.

Karen Anderson, a London lawyer who grew up in a 19th-century hôtel particulier while her father served as Australia’s ambassador to France, echoes this sentiment. “The thing about them was that when you shut the gate you were in your own little private world,” she says.

Françoise Moniè also grew up in a hôtel particulier. The late 18th-century Petit Hôtel Bourienne in the centre of Paris has been in her family for more than a century. It is still her home, but several rooms are open to the public. As we sit in the salon, painted cherubs flying overhead, I ask her what it’s like to live in such a place. Her answer is a surprise. “If I am honest, one could have been very happy elsewhere,” she says. Such are the arduous responsibilities of the restoration of the magnificent Directoire interior.

My last visit is to one of the largest hôtels particuliers still in private hands. It is nothing less than a small palace, with a vast gilded ballroom, and a row of reception rooms overlooking the 2,600 sq metre garden.

The owners are descendants of the Corsican count who bought it more than 150 years ago. Because of French inheritance laws mandating that property pass equally to all offspring, there are now 30 family members living in a secondary apartment block carved out of the former servants’ quarters. They have recently decided to sell the house for a nine-figure sum. For now it still serves as an extended family residence, with communal rooms used for clan gatherings. “Last night there was a Mozart concert here, and this weekend there will be a first communion celebration,” says one of the family members who also asked not to be named.

All of this remains concealed behind grand wooden doors in the Faubourg Saint- Germain. “Live hidden, live happy,” he says.

Philip Hawkes Agency, tel: +33 1 42 68 11 11; www. philiphawkes.com