After 1973, Yousuf’s Sparks Street studio closed, and another one opened in a hotel, also in Ottawa. The Château Laurier is an historic hotel near the Parliament buildings and the beautiful Rideau Canal, where boats float in summer and skaters flit by in winter.
The studio almost fit into its new address, but the huge enlarger, the piece of equipment that made the large prints the studio was known for, was too tall. A hole had to be cut in the ceiling. It was good that their friends upstairs at CBC Radio did not mind.
Sometimes Yousuf stayed in New York, where he had a small studio. For the rest of the year after 1980, when the Karshes were not travelling, they lived at the Château Laurier. They had a new family, the staff of the hotel. Workers stopped by to chat or to ask Estrellita for help with problems in their love lives.
In 1936, when Yousuf had his first solo exhibit at the Château Laurier, he did not know that one day the hotel would name a room after him. Room 358 in the hotel is known as the Karsh Room to honour the years that Estrellita and Yousuf lived and worked at the hotel. His stunning photographs hang in the suite he occupied and also near the entry to the grand hotel.
The Château Laurier photographed in the 1920s. The hotel is one of Ottawa’s most famous landmarks.