KATY, Texas (Covering Katy News) – For most people driving along I-10, the towering rice dryers of Old Town Katy are simply part of the landscape — familiar, iconic, easy to take for granted. But for Hadi "Andrew" Nurcahya, they represent something far more personal: a responsibility, a community and a calling. And increasingly, he is doing more than just restoring them — he is working to change the system that makes saving them so difficult.
Finding Home
Andrew's journey to becoming one of Katy's most passionate preservationists began long before he ever set foot in Texas. With family roots in Indonesia, he says he spent much of his life feeling like an outsider.
"I felt like I didn't really belong," Andrew said in a recent appearance on Chat KTX with hosts Natalie Thomas and Brooke Gonzalez. "We did not feel like we belong in Indonesia, so we moved to the US and didn't really have a community feel in any part of my life until we moved to Katy."
The family arrived in Katy in 2015, drawn by the reputation of Katy ISD schools for his older son. What they found was something they hadn't expected — a place that finally felt like home.
A Birthday Party That Changed Everything
His path to the rice dryers began, of all places, at a birthday party at neighboring No Label Brewery around 2018. He said he couldn't stop staring at the towering structures next door.
"I just thought it was like the coolest building in town," he said. "It's gotta be historical somehow," he thought.
During COVID in 2020, the long-abandoned property turned up as a listing on HAR.com, the most popular real estate platform in Houston. So, Andrew toured it and came home with a proposition for his wife.
"This is going to be our maybe chance of a lifetime, or it'll be our stupidest thing that we ever done," he told her.
She didn't hesitate.
"Yeah, I think it's going to be chance of lifetime. Let's go for it."
Custodian of History
Andrew recently sat down with Natalie Thomas and Brooke Gonzalez on their Katy-area podcast Chat KTX, where the conversation quickly revealed just how deeply he has immersed himself in the history of the property and the community around it.
"When he bought it, it was like Jurassic Park," Brooke said — and Andrew didn't disagree.
"It was, yes. It was really rough." The property had been abandoned for decades, overgrown and neglected. But where others saw a problem, Andrew saw a purpose.
He immediately reached out to the Katy Heritage Society for guidance on how to restore the site with historical integrity. The relationship proved so meaningful that Andrew was later nominated to serve on the organization's board, an offer he gladly accepted.
"This dude is not even from Katy, Texas, and he acts like he was born, raised — 'cause he knows the history," Natalie said on the Chat KTX podcast.
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The Dryer
The Cardiff Rice Dryer now known as The Dryer during the process of being painted.
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Chat KTX
Hadi "Andrew" Nurcahya being interviewed on the podcast Chat KTX with Brook and Natalie.
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The Dryer
The Katy Train is available for rides at The Dryer.
Fighting to Change the System
Restoring a historic structure is hard enough. Doing it under modern building codes that were never designed with 80-year-old agricultural landmarks in mind makes it even harder. Andrew has not just accepted that reality — he has set out to change it.
At his urging, citizens turned out to a recent Katy City Council meeting to speak in favor of a historic preservation ordinance. The council responded, voting to create a historic preservation committee with the Cardiff Rice Dryer — now known as The Dryer — designated as the priority structure. Then Councilmember Janet Corte, who put the item on the agenda.
"The historical preservation designation does not require a state or national approval," Corte said. "It can be applied to either a district, an individual area, or a particular building that provides historical or cultural significance to the local community. The Katy rice dryers have been major landmarks not only for Katy residents, but for the millions of people who have driven the I-10 corridor."
Citizens who spoke at the meeting echoed the urgency.
"It would be so sad for many of us Katyites to see that dryer become useless in a road to be kicked, to be knocked down, destroying Katy's happy and great economic times and our history and heritage," said Judy Edwards Cox. "A huge piece of our history would be gone forever."
Wendy Watson, another Katy resident who spoke in favor of the committee, argued that preservation should be seen as an asset rather than an obstacle.
"Our past is not an obstacle to growth as an asset," Watson said.
"Preserved history creates identities such as our skyline, tourism, education, and pride. Once these landmarks are gone, they are gone forever," she said.
The city is still working through two separate draft ordinances as leaders decide how to move forward.
Covering Katy News
The Cardiff Rice Dryer with a fresh coat of paint. Photo taken in Dec. 2025.
The Freshest Paint Job in Decades
If you've noticed that Andrew's rice dryers look a little different from the others scattered across the Katy area, you're not imagining it. His are the ones with a fresh coat of white paint — the only rice dryers in the area that have seen a paintbrush in decades — and they stand out sharply against the weathered and rusted structures nearby.
The scale of the challenge alone was enough to give most people pause. The dryers rise 170 feet with no elevator — only rung ladders.
Painting the structure meant carrying five gallon buckets of paint up those rung ladders over and over. Hiring a commercial company with bucket trucks and spray equipment simply wasn't an option on a tight budget — and Andrew himself doesn't make the climb. "I'm afraid of heights," he said.
"Imagine going, you know, your typical rung ladder, but except you go 170 feet up, and you have to repeat that about 300 something times," Andrew said.
The solution came by chance. While selling off surplus steel from the property, a steelworker showed up and asked what they were doing with the structures. One conversation led to another, and a deal was struck.
"Previously it was going to be at least twice as much to paint," Andrew said, noting that finding someone with the skill and nerve to rappel down the dryers roughly 300 times made all the difference.
That same crew now installs a Christmas tree atop the dryers each holiday season, visible to drivers coming in on I-10. "I love bringing the tradition back," Andrew said.
What He's Built
Over five and a half years, Andrew has transformed the property into a growing community destination. He owns the land on which Katy Beer Garden now operates as a popular venue. True to the name, he insisted on building a real outdoor garden. "We were going to create a garden. We were going to make true to that word," he said, investing in trees, artificial turf and open space that has become a gathering place for families.
He also hosts a weekly farmers market, inspired by the site's agricultural roots and a concern about how far removed modern eating has become from its origins. "Let's bring a farmers market, but we wanna try to push the more the vegetable, the produce, the eggs, the honey," he said. "Let's start try to go back to the original farmers market." A rideable train for kids — suggested by his architect — pays homage to Katy's railroad heritage. As Andrew noted simply, "The city's name is from the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, known as the MKT, which was then shortened to "The Katy."
Train rides are $3 per person and are free for babies or any children carried by an adult.
"We are donating one dollar to Katy Heritage Society for each train ride ticket," Andrew added.
The Dream Ahead
Andrew's vision for the site is still very much a work in progress, and he is intentional about not moving too fast. But the wish list is ambitious. He hopes to one day open an observation deck and a restaurant inside one of the dryers. A three-story building is planned with a ground-floor food hall, second-floor co-working spaces and a third-floor event venue for 50 to 100 guests. And perhaps most meaningfully, he dreams of a museum located directly beneath the dryers. "We actually want the museum to be right underneath the rice dryer in the basement area, where you can actually feel the space around you," he said.
A Simple Guiding Principle
What drives a man who grew up half a world away to pour himself so completely into preserving a piece of Katy, Texas history? Andrew keeps the answer simple.
"I tell my son that no matter what people say, what people do, we just do one thing. We do what is right for the building and what the community would like us to do."
Below you can watch Andrew's interview on Chat KTX with Brooke and Natalie.