[1] It was designed by Charles Garnier's son-in-law Henri Blondel[2] and was intended to be the most luxurious hotel in Paris at the time.

It occupied a full block, the former site of the Ministry of Finance, designed by François-Hippolyte Destailleur in 1817, following the Bourbon Restoration and burned down during the Paris Commune in 1871.

[4] The Hôtel Continental remained the largest hotel in Paris for decades; the Russian Grand Dukes habitually stayed there.

[10] The hotel was the site of a bombing on August 30, 1981 that injured 18 people and damaged the foyer and restaurant on the ground floor.

[13] GIC selected Starwood Hotels to assume management of the property, and it was renamed The Westin Paris on October 10, 2005,[14] adding the suffix Vendôme to its name in 2010.