The White House is getting a permanent helipad installed on the South Lawn.
President Donald Trump confirmed to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that the White House is getting a granite helipad paid for by Sikorsky Aircraft — a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin — to support the new fleet of helicopters used as Marine One.
A Lockheed Martin spokesperson confirmed the contribution and told Business Insider it was being made to the National Park Service.
Trump said the permanent fixture will help protect the South Lawn’s grass.
The newer helicopters from Sikorsky are about “two and a half times more powerful than the old ones,” Trump said.
“When you land on the grass, it’s not that the grass gets discolored. It gets ripped out,” he said.
Trump told reporters that the helipad will bear the White House seal and that Sikorsky will pay for the project. The president said the helipad will cost between $5 million and $6 million.
“Sikorsky is paying for it. You know why? Because they didn’t tell us how powerful these helicopters were,” Trump said. “And they felt a little bit guilty.”
A Sikorsky spokesperson said that the new model for presidential transport — the VH-92A Patriot — delivers “increased performance and reduced maintenance costs and time over the current fleet of presidential helicopters.”
Spokespeople for Sikorsky and Lockheed did not say how much the project would cost or how long construction would take.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Recent photos show that the helipad is under construction.
Using the South Lawn as a landing area for transporting the commander in chief dates back to the Eisenhower administration, as helicopters provided a faster, easier mode of transport without the need for a motorcade.
In lieu of a traditional landing pad, Marine One typically lands on temporary landing plates or circular disks placed on the lawn.
Below are photos documenting the history of helicopter landings at the White House and the installation of the new helipad.
Aviation pioneer James Ray landed an autogyro, an aircraft with a spinning rotor on top, on the White House South Lawn for the first time in 1931.
James Ray parked a Pitcairn-Cierva PCA-2 autogyro on the South Lawn as part of an award ceremony, according to the National Air and Space Museum. It was the first recorded instance of a rotary-wing aircraft landing on the lawn.
In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first US president to use helicopter transport from the White House lawn.
The first documented instance of Eisenhower boarding a helicopter from the South Lawn was on July 12, 1957, according to The History Channel.
The Marine Corps website states that helicopter transport helped turn a two-hour motorcade into a seven-minute helicopter ride.
Helicopter transport for the US president to and from the White House South Lawn later became standard operating procedure for short-distance travel.
The White House helicopter transport was named Marine One, a call sign for a Marine Corps aircraft carrying the president.
The fleet is operated by Marine Helicopter Squadron One, known as HMX-1 or the Nighthawks.
Marine One has become one of the most visible symbols of presidential travel, next to Air Force One.
Instead of a permanent helipad, White House personnel would place large landing disks on the South Lawn for Marine One helicopters.
The landing targets provide the aircraft with a stable contact point and could reduce turf damage.
The South Lawn is no match for the new Sikorsky aircraft.
In 2024, Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky formally delivered the VH-92A helicopter to the US Marine Corps to replace the older fleet of aircraft used for Marine One.
The government spent $5 billion on the new fleet.
Bloomberg previously reported in 2024 that issues with the VH-92A scorching the South Lawn have delayed the aircraft’s ability to transport the president.
Trump says construction of the presidential helipad is underway.
Photos show that the grass on the South Lawn has been removed to make way for the construction of the permanent granite helipad.
“For 50 years, we’ve been landing helicopters on grass,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “The grass is wet, soggy.”
The helipad is only one of the construction projects the White House is going through under Trump 2.0.
Other renovation projects pursued under the second Trump administration include the demolition of the East Wing to make room for a 90,000 square-foot White House ballroom.
The project is estimated to cost $400 million.
The administration also hosted a UFC fight at the White House in June, temporarily turning the South Lawn into an arena.
