Another one of the renovation projects that's consuming President Donald Trump's thoughts has hit an unexpected snag.
The 80-year-old has ordered contractors to tear apart and redo weeks of work on his planned White House helipad, dissatisfied with its appearance and questioning whether the sloped South Lawn itself needs to be regraded, two people familiar with his private comments told the Washington Post.
"Trump has made the helipad a priority, ordering that work begun in June be completed by a state visit in September, but was dissatisfied with the results," the newspaper reported. "The White House’s South Lawn, where the helipad is being built, slants downward. Trump has expressed a desire for a landing pad that sits level with the horizon, prompting contractors to disassemble their work and consider whether to start by changing the lawn itself."
Photographs obtained by the Post show crews dismantling their progress, including a 100-foot-wide granite presidential seal that had begun taking shape just last week.
The setback complicates Trump's timeline for the project, which he has pushed to complete before a September state visit and, ideally, before Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit later that month. Construction crews have been working around-the-clock to meet that deadline.
It's unclear how much the latest changes will add to the cost of the project, already estimated at more than $5 million and funded by Lockheed Martin, which owns Sikorsky, the manufacturer of the Marine One helicopter fleet. Neither Lockheed Martin nor Clark Construction, the contractor on the project, commented on whether additional costs would be covered, and the White House did not address the president's specific changes.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle defended the project broadly, saying the grounds have "never looked better" under Trump's leadership and that a proper helipad is needed to protect the lawn from helicopter exhaust.
The South Lawn slopes downward by as much as 20 degrees in some areas — steeper than federal guidelines recommend for helicopter landing zones, though pads don't need to be perfectly level, only flat enough for safety while still allowing water runoff.
The site selected for the new pad, near the South Portico where Marine One has traditionally landed, is flatter than surrounding areas but apparently still not level enough for Trump's preference.
The project stems from a technical problem: the newer VH-92A Patriot helicopters direct exhaust downward, risking scorched grass on the South Lawn. Sikorsky spent years working with administration officials on a fix before Trump approved building a dedicated helipad.
In the meantime, Marine One has been using the Ellipse just south of the White House as a temporary landing zone while the permanent site is reworked.