The stone bell tower of the Spaso-Gennady Monastery, built in 1715, was three-tiered. The first floor housed two storage rooms with a warm cellar beneath them. The second floor contained the church of Cornelius of Komel, which was moved to the warm refectory attached to the cathedral church from the west side after 1804. The freed-up space was used for an archive. The third tier was open and intended for ringing, housing seven bells and "battle clocks." The bell tower had a wooden tent roof, with birch bark laid between the layers of the shingle roofing. Above the tent rose a dome, initially covered with wooden shingles, later sheathed in white tin, topped with a gilded iron cross. A wooden porch adjoined the bell tower with a staircase leading to the church and the ringing tier. The length of the bell tower with the porch was 6 fathoms, the width was 4 fathoms. The height of the porch with the roof reached 6 fathoms, while the entire bell tower with the tent was 18 fathoms. In 1830, a decision was made to reconstruct the bell tower, altering its appearance. From 1831 to 1835, the wooden tent was replaced with brick quadrants that tapered upwards. The facades of the bell tower were designed in the classical style, divided into four tiers. The original brick walls were preserved, but their proportions changed. The lower quadrant was raised in height and adorned with classical porticos, which have not survived to this day. Twelve columns, three on each corner of the quadrant, were installed on a base 1.2 meters wide. The columns had a diameter of 80 cm, the distance between them was 1.1 meters, and they stood 25 cm away from the walls of the bell tower.

Above the lower quadrant was an octagon, retaining the walls of the original structure but with altered decorative embellishments. Of the eight ringing arches, only four were left, while the others were bricked up. The facades were decorated with twelve columns, three on each side. The three upper tiers of the bell tower remained largely unchanged, with only their completion lost. The upper quadrant had a dome-shaped metal covering resembling a bell, with a vase-shaped dome and a gilded cross.

Today, the bell tower is located in the southwestern part of the Spaso-Gennady Monastery, 35 meters from the cathedral church. The separate placement of the bell tower and the church was common, as seen in the Spaso-Transfiguration Monastery in Yaroslavl and in the Ipatiev and Abraham-Gorodets Monasteries. The two earliest stone buildings of the monastery were not built simultaneously: first, in the mid-17th century, the stone cathedral church was constructed, while the bell tower remained wooden for over half a century. It was only during the time of Peter the Great, in 1715, that it was built of brick, becoming the second stone building in the monastery.