I want to thank you all for a helpful discussion.
Based on your advice, I was able to setup a subdomain on my server and clone my site to the subdomain.
I added a subdomain through cPanel. I then (after backing up) used the softaculous application for wordpress to clone my site.
This took me about 5 minutes! The clone installed on the directory of my choice, which, in this case, was my subdomain (erased the dir for directory installation).
So, on the main domain, I have a “coming soon” type of message while I work on the staging site I created. I asked my hosting service….they did not seem to think they had such a service separate from the proposed solution above.
