This sounds like a one-episode type of feature created for the express
purpose of heating the bricks for something, assuming the charcoal and oyster
shell under the bricks are functionally related.

Out here in the west, folks prepared for cold evenings on the desert by
digging a shallow trench or hole and filling it with hot coals from the
campfire. They then put a thin layer of sand over the hot coals, spread their
blankets down and slept warm even if the air temperature dropped to below
zero.

This is not to suggest, however, that some poor chap heated those bricks to
sleep outside the mansion.

Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.