The steel-framed structure is clad in red bricks with inlaid mosaicwork, forming a carefully detailed façade, and the corner elevation has an arrangement of brickwork and windows which suggests "the pleated folds of a curtain".

During World War II, important documents and other assets were moved to Saddlescombe on the South Downs, where they were stored underground, and the roof of the building was used to mount a battery of anti-aircraft guns.

[2] The building society established a sports and social club in 1935 and housed it in the basement of the partly built office.

[11] In 2002, property developer Baron Homes Corporation acquired the building and converted the upper storeys into 34 flats.

[20] One of the penthouse apartments, which has an octagonal kitchen and two balconies with extensive views over the city and its hinterland, was bought by local businessman Mike Holland from a former owner of Crawley Town F.C.

[29] Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel was an architect, architectural writer, former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects and former Brighton resident who adopted a distinctive interpretation of Modern architecture in his designs, particularly at St Wilfrid's Church (1932–34) in the Elm Grove area of Brighton and at Princes House itself.

[11][30][31] "Much more idiosyncratic and edgy" than the "polished" conventional Modernism of Embassy Court, built a year earlier,[31] the building's simple steel-framed construction contrasts with the "decorative treatment of [its] cladding materials", which include reddish handmade sand-faced bricks, blue glass and tiles inlaid between the bricks, and green slate.

The structure of the steel frame is emphasised by being overlaid with handmade bricks in a soldier course pattern both horizontally and vertically.

At each join, the brickwork is laid in a starburst pattern, and pieces of blue tile and glass are inlaid into the joints between the bricks.

[1][3] Between each section of steel framing, each bay is treated identically in the form of "a cell of identical dimensions and design", consisting of a full-width steel casement window (those at first-floor level slightly taller than those above them) above a panel of red bricks laid in the header bond pattern.