Pitchin' on the Ritz

Red Sox pitching ace Josh Beckett (above) has a luxe place to hang his cleats. The right-handed starter bought a 2,667-square-foot condo in the Ritz-Carlton Towers for $2.69 million from Eli Ullum, according to county records. The deal for the three-bedroom, four-and-half-bath unit was brokered by Michael Doherty, a partner in Citylife Real Estate. But it’s no surprise that Beckett would settle into the Ritz Towers – they’re a favorite for the city’s pro athletes. Among the Red Sox who owned property there are David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, whose 4,421-square-foot penthouse was on the market last year for $6.9 million. Former Sox players Johnny Damon and Edgar Renteria lived on Avery Street when they played at Fenway Park. And onetime Sox pitcher KEITH FOULKE, now with the Cleveland Indians, sold his 2,242-square-foot condo on the same floor as Beckett’s new home earlier this season. The two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath unit went for $1.98 million. That deal also was brokered by Citylife’s Doherty.

Chef Todd English has purchased a $3.1 million three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath carriage house on Chestnut Street on Boston’s Beacon Hill. According to the listing, the nearly 4,000-square-foot three-story house has three fireplaces and a roof garden. At the time of the sale, broker Carol Adolph of Otis & Ahearn in Charlestown said the kitchen needs renovation.

The Office star Steve Carell and his actress wife, Nancy Walls, purchased a four-bedroom house in the seaside South Shore town of Marshfield for $700,000, according to the Plymouth County Registry of Deeds. The Acton-bred Carell stars in Evan Almighty, which opens June 22, and filmed Dan in Real Life in Rhode Island last fall.

The Republic of France has a new residence for its consul general. The French government paid $2.75 million for a 5,353-square-foot, 11-room Colonial on Brattle Street in Cambridge. The house was purchased from Lucille Kohlberg and will serve as the home of Consul General Francois Gauthier, whose offices are in Boston. On May 19, Gauthier was host to the first official event in the house when a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette by F.G. Bevalet was unveiled in the third-floor open studio. (It is the same space that was once home to Felix Albert Schmitt, a painter of the New England School at the end of the 19th century, according to the consulate.) Painted in Lafayette’s pre-American years, the piece belongs to the private collection of the Otis family and had never before been shown to the public. One of Boston’s oldest families, their ancestors include Harrison Gray Otis, who was both a Boston mayor and a US senator, and the Revolutionary War leader James Otis.

Boston Pops maestro Keith Lockhart and his girlfriend, attorney Emiley Zalesky, bought a Tudor home on Kent Street in Brookline from Esther Saltzman. The couple paid $915,000 for the 10-room house that was built in 1927. The house has five bedrooms and three and a half baths.