The sides and rear are similar to the front facade, but include blind recesses and the molding is of a browner sandstone.

Young, the Bristol Customshouse and Post Office is a two-story rectangular Italian palazzo style brick building that rests upon a raised granite base.

The sides and rear are similar to the front facade, but include blind recesses and the molding is of a browner sandstone.

[3] Alterations to the building are evident in an old photograph, dated to circa 1860–1869, which shows pedimented dormers in the center of the roof, that is believed to have been an addition that has since been removed, but at an unknown time.

[6] The rear chimney was described as "apparently altered" without future explanation in the National Register of Historic Places nomination.

After passing through the vestibule, the front area served as the postal sorting rooms, office and mail boxes.

[3][7] Records show that $1,071.75 in repairs and $68.36 for "mechanical equipment" was spent by the United States government between July 1908 and June 1909.

[7] The Bristol Customshouse and Post Office is historically significant as "an example of the rediscovery of the Italian palazzo mode of architecture after the long proliferation-of the Greek Revival.