St. James' in the City took shape during the mid-1920s religious building boom that transformed Wilshire Boulevard into a corridor of grand ecclesiastical architecture. Commissioned by the Episcopal parish as early as 1922, the church followed the pattern of major 1920s Los Angeles religious projects, with a multi-year gap between design and construction before the building opened in 1925. Benjamin Geer McDougall, a San Francisco architect with substantial ecclesiastical design experience including St. Luke's Church in San Francisco and St. Paul's Church in Oakland, brought his command of religious architecture to this Los Angeles commission. The church joined Wilshire United Methodist Church, Immanuel Presbyterian Church, and Wilshire Christian Church in serving the boulevard's prosperous new residents with denominationally diverse sacred spaces.
The building employs Gothic Revival architecture, a style that had remained popular for American Episcopal church design since the mid-19th century and offered congregations both spiritual gravitas and architectural continuity with Anglican tradition. The formal name, St. James' in the City, distinguishes this parish from other Episcopal congregations bearing the same dedication across Los Angeles.
