If you’re looking for pagebuilding tools, including some very nice free templates, I would recommend hosting with http://www.bravenet.com.
I don’t use them myself – because I was looking for a server with php/mysql and bravenet didn’t have it when I started.
I know a lot of the people at Bravenet, and they have top knotch support. The programmer there is now working on setting up php/mysql, etc. I’ve been nagging, but I’m sure it’s not because of me. lol
They have a visual editor for html, as well as frontpage.
I recommend starting out using only notepad, so that you actually learn html. I’m a beginner myself, and all I’ve used is notepad.