A gabled entrance section projects from the center of the main facade, rising through a bellcast stage at the roof level to an elaborate two-stage clock tower topped by a pyramidal roof.

The eaves and gable edges are adorned with dentil moulding, and windows in the upper level of the projecting section are set in recessed round-arch openings, a detail echoed by blind arches in the first stage of the tower.

[2] The 1886 jailer's house was a two-story wood-frame structure with a gabled roof, and was three bays wide and two deep.

That building was a basically cubical masonry structure, two stories in height, finished in brick with granite trim.

The county complex was built in 1886, following a decision by the state legislature to move the seat of Orleans County from Irasburg, centrally located but isolated and agrarian, to the bustling lakefront and railroad-supported town of Newport.