setting front page permissions under user management.

I'm trying to make a site 'members-only', and to display a frontpage to guests explaining what the site is and why it is private, without them seeing a 'access denied' error. Of course when users login, this initial page shouldn't reload. The description of the frontpage module seemed to fit what I wanted to do.

On a brand new drupal install, I've disabled 'content access' permission for guests.
I've chosen private file system and chosen a folder above public_html
I've installed and configured the frontpage module.

However, when I log out, as a guest I just see the normal 'access denied' error that I would see if frontpage hadn't been installed. In other words, it doesn't look like it is working *at all*.

I'm quite sure I have it configured properly.

Any suggestions?