Pedro St. James was built in 1780 by an Englishman named William Eden. Although it is not known why and how Eden came to Cayman, he became sufficiently prosperous for his small land holding near Spotts to be marked on the first map of Grand Cayman in 1773 as Edens. Using slave labour, Eden styled the home as a small scale great house of the kind then found on plantations in Jamaica. The house received its name due to its location along Pedro Point. Being the largest home on the island at the time, Pedro St. James was a key meeting place for principal inhabitants, eventually becoming the home of the first elected parliament of the islands in December 1831, causing it to be known as "The Birthplace of Democracy in the Cayman Islands".
