1878 : the Schmitz family , ancestors of the present owners , bought 2 villas  on the Promenade des Anglais , The architect , Louis Castel , was put in charge of turning them into a hotel.

The family obtained the authorisation from  the Duke of Westminster’s family to call this new Hotel : Hotel Westminster.

1904 : already well known , the Hotel is extended at the back and the Frescoes Lobby,
a restaurant “table d’hôtes” ( now called the Salon President ) , the Salon Belle Epoque and new bedrooms facing the Masséna garden were created.

1950 : Mrs Schmitz handed the Hotel down to her grand child : the Doctor Jean Paul Grinda , a well known personality in the town of Nice . His influence and personal fortune allowed him to modernised the Hotel , whilst retaining the very turn of the century atmosphere.

1961 : the old large dining rooms are turned into meeting rooms .Two restaurants are added , one on the Promenade des Anglais , as well as an english colonial style bar , also facing the sea.
Today the Hotel Westminster is one of the establishment in the Hotel industry on the Côte d’Azur that best represents the art and culture of the south of France.

The two stone lions coming from the villa Les Cariatides ,looking after the Hotel and nearly Westminster’s museum , could resume more than one century and a half of the Riviera’s story.
To this address , the famous german composer Giacomo Meyerbeer wrote in
1858 the two first acts of its opera L’Africaine.

At the beginning of the century an Italian artist has painted the extraordinary
Frescoes of the Grand Hall.
In 1961 the iron work in  the stairwell were restored with gold leaf .
The same year the Hôtel bought a unique collection of paintings by the artist
Bensa that represent Nice before 1860 , when a certain  shaded path running along the Baie des Anges first became popular with rich English visitors.