Thanks everyone. Here's what I did (for anyone who may come here with the same issue). I don't know much about .php at all, so this was a great learning experience for me.
1) I copied all of the information between the <head> tags from my header.php document (included in the original theme):
<head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="<?php bloginfo('html_type'); ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo('charset'); ?>" />
<?php
global $options;
foreach ($options as $value) {
if (get_settings( $value['id'] ) === FALSE) { $$value['id'] = $value['std']; } else { $$value['id'] = get_settings( $value['id'] ); } }
?>
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/functions/bfa_meta_tags.php'); ?>
<?php if ( $ata_show_header_image == "Yes") {
include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/functions/bfa_rotating_header_images.php');
} ?>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" type="text/css" />
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/style.php'); ?>
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="<?php bloginfo('name'); ?> RSS Feed" href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" />
<link rel="pingback" href="<?php bloginfo('pingback_url'); ?>" />
<?php wp_head(); ?>
2) I pasted this info between the <head> tags on my new page template (frontpage.php)
3) I deleted random bits line by line, noting the changes that happened with each removal.
4) Ultimately, I was left with the following code, which allowed me to keep my different background color (different from the white of the rest of the site) and the H2 tags adopted for formatting from the css of the main site:
<head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="<?php bloginfo('html_type'); ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo('charset'); ?>" />
<?php
global $options;
foreach ($options as $value) {
if (get_settings( $value['id'] ) === FALSE) { $$value['id'] = $value['std']; } else { $$value['id'] = get_settings( $value['id'] ); } }
?>
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/style.php'); ?>
I still don't know what a lot of the .php above means, but some of it I can decipher. Here's to learning!