An Apartment Fit for a Princess, President and Childhood Imagination

When Travis Grimm moved into one of the private residences at the Carlyle, the storied Upper East Side hotel that opened in 1930, he wanted to honor two legacies: the history of the hotel that has hosted luminaries including Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy, Jr., and the legend of his own family.

Mr. Grimm is, yes, a direct descendant of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, best known as the Brothers Grimm, who collected fanciful tales and folklore that form the canon of childhood storytelling. The brothers, who grew up in Hanau, Germany, stitched together the goblins, gremlins and greedy witches of traditional Germanic folklore into the most eternally popular characters, like Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, and Hansel and Gretel, to name a few.

Also an interior designer with an eponymous studio, Travis Grimm Interiors, Mr. Grimm, 41, took care to merge the fairy-tales and hotel history into the décor and style of the three-bedroom apartment that is now for sale with an asking price of $11.8 million.

The couple purchased their unit in 2022 for $7.75 million and then spent another $2 million on a gut renovation. “It needed to be aired out,” Mr. Grimm said of the unit. “It needed to be brought to a comfortable living standard for today while still respecting the Carlyle.”