I was able to resolve my question. Here's the steps I followed in case others have a question about this.
After downloading the modules locally as I did above with
npm -i <modulename>
1. Copy the module directories to a directory where the zeppelin user will have access to. For example:
/groupCode/helium/
2. Edit the module json file Artifact key to point to the new location. For example, edit
/groupCode/helium/ultimate-heatmap-chart/ultimate-heatmap-chart.json
Artifact would be /groupCode/helium/ultimate-heatmap-chart
3. create a symlink from the modules json into $ZEPPELIN_HOME/helium. (I had to create the helium directory)
For example
ln -s /groupCode/helium/ultimate-heatmap-chart/ultimate-heatmap-chart.json $ZEPPELIN_HOME/helium/ultimate-heatmap-chart.json
4. restart Zeppelin in Ambari
5. Go to Zeppelin, choose Helium. Select your module choose Enable