How do I prevent Safari from opening to the last site I visited?

System Preferences...

General

deselect the option, "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps"

This is a resume feature of Lion, where the system remembers all your open applications and windows ... If you're not used to it, it can be a bit jarring having everything load up automatically.

In safari preferences general the default homepage is http://www.apple.com/startpage so it shall open when you open safari if you deselect restore windows when quitting and reopen ...... in system preferences general...

that "correct" answer sounds right, but it doesn't seem to actually work. i deselected the "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps" option, installed Java for Lion, restarted my machine, and launched Safari, whereupon it opened to the Java for Lion page (which is definitely not my home page). double-checked the "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps" setting, and yes, it is still unchecked.

any other suggestions?

well okay, now the uncheckedness of the "Restore windows, etc. etc." setting seems to have taken effect. i don't know what caused it, but now Safari opens to my home page regardless of what page it was displaying when i quit it. thank you, Michael; don't know why it didn't work initially, but it's working now.

Just as an extra tip, you can solve this issue without turning off this feature completely. I have found that it is useful in some cases where I want to get back to where I left off, but not in other cases where I really want to QUIT the application. Therefore, if you hold down option when pressing apple-q (or while going to application name-quit application name), it will quit and discard window meaning it will quit and not resume to the last window.

This is a great point - you can also Shift Click to open Safari to your home page. It's an added step, but gives you the option to keep the last page viewed feature functioning, as it can be convenient at times.