President Donald Trump has confirmed that the giant new helipad being built on the White House South Lawn to accommodate Marine One will be made of granite and paid for by a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office Monday, Trump said of his latest makeover of the executive mansion: “We’re building a helipad, a beautiful helipad, and it’s got the seal of the White House on it, in granite, in carved granite. It’s really a beautiful thing.”
He added that Sikorsky Aircraft would pay for the project. “It’s about $5 or $6 million,” he estimated. “They’re paying the full cost.”
The company delivered a new fleet of helicopters to the White House in 2024 under a contract agreed by former president Barack Obama but Trump has continued to use the existing choppers to travel to and fro because the exhaust vents on the new model, a VH‑92A Patriot, aim heat downwards when it lands and takes off, burning the grass.
The president said the aircraft had “ripped out” the grass, not merely discolored it, and that Sikorsky was paying because they “felt a little bit guilty” about the problem created.
He added that he had personally chosen granite as his preferred building material for the landing spot, rather than painted concrete.
“You’re landing on granite, which is the strongest stone,” the president said, suggesting that the completed pad could also be used for other events, such as outdoor White House press conferences.
While composite granite, often used in interior design, can be vulnerable to extreme heat, natural granite is itself forged in intense temperatures and can therefore withstand it, so Trump’s choice of material should not be compromised by the arriving and departing helicopters.
The South Lawn was most recently the site of a temporary UFC arena set up to host a cage fight celebrating the president’s 80th birthday. New photos from the White House show the size of the pad compared to the rest of the building.
The helipad will mean the VH‑92A Patriot can at last commence regular service and that the White House can “finally retire 45-year-old helicopters” dating from the Vietnam War era, the president said.
A Lockheed Martin spokesperson said in a statement that Sikorsky’s contribution for the helipad was paid to the National Park Service.
“Our engagement with the federal government is guided by rigorous ethics and compliance standards and conducted in full accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.”
Sikorsky said the model in question delivers “increased performance and reduced maintenance costs and time over the current fleet of presidential helicopters.”
The helipad is Trump’s newest addition to a White House he has changed much since returning to power, the process beginning when he made over the Oval with as much gold as possible.
The president has since had the Rose Garden paved over into a patio reminiscent of the open-air dining area at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, demolished the East Wing to make way for his controversial ballroom, added new partisan plaques and signage to the colonnade and flagpoles to the lawns and had the Lincoln Bedroom’s adjoining bathroom redecorated.
He also recently floated the idea of fixing a bald eagle emblem to a prominent portico balcony, only for social media commentators to point out its eerie echoing of Nazi iconography.
The president has further turned his attention towards “beautifying” other national monuments around Washington, D.C., with the clean-up of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool proving a particularly troubled project.
Later Monday, Trump was seen in the Rose Garden and commented on yet more building work being undertaken, this time to revamp the columns on the north side of the building.
“We’ve taken about 150 years of paint off of the columns,” he said. “If you don’t strip the paint off, it gets worse and worse and worse… A lot of love is being put into the White House.”
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