Okay, just in case anyone else is wanting to do this, my developer helped me implement a solution!!
Here is the function he wrote and placed in the bp-custom.php file.
function add_front_menu_item( ) {
global $bp;
$args = array(
'name' => __('Home', 'buddypress'),
'slug' => 'front',
'default_subnav_slug' => 'public',
'position' => 10,
'show_for_displayed_user' => false,
'screen_function' => 'bp_custom_user_nav_item_screen',
'item_css_id' => 'custom-class'
);
bp_core_new_nav_item($args);
I hope this helps someone else save time and frustration!
Thanks for sharing that. Appreciate the generosity.