In one, the renowned Dallas interior designer caters to the rich and powerful. Her fantasyland projects for Middle Eastern royalty and international hotel magnates defy reality.

Atlantis in the Bahamas, the Venetian in Las Vegas, the Four Seasons Hotel Cairo, palaces in the United Arab Emirates and the Old Course Hotel at St. Andrews all glow with the Wilson five-star design touch.

Last year, Wilson & Associates, which has 250 employees in seven offices around the globe, generated $33 million in professional fees on $1 billion worth of interior architectural magic.

To us, she's the same Trisha who thought she'd hit the big time when she was hired to design a hotdog stand in Austin because she got to fly there.

Her big break came in 1975, when Trammell Crow hired her for the Anatole Hotel. Since her hotel debut, Wilson & Associates has installed more than a million guest rooms - and we're not talking Holiday Inns.

The firm is currently working on Atlantis Dubai for Sol Kerzner, who wants glitzy suites that appear to be submerged in a shark tank when the draperies are open.

Since 1990, Woodbine Development Corp. has hired Wilson for a half dozen projects, including the luxury Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort and Spa and the Westin La Cantera Resort San Antonio.

"Those were totally different themes," says Gary Coffman, Woodbine senior vice president. "They were able to capture the design spirit we were after."

Ms. Wilson has created an exercise pool for camels training for the races and a rhino mud wallow for her home in the Waterberg district of South Africa.

"It's so funny. I never thought I'd go to architectural school to learn how to do a mud wallow, but it's actually quite tricky," says the graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.

"Imagine this," she says, "it's thousands and thousands of acres of sand. So they have to landscape it, irrigate it and bring in all of these African animals."

"An underprivileged minority making A's can almost certainly get a scholarship. But a B student has a much tougher time and often has as much potential," she says. "I was a B student."

Her first project converted a ramshackle hut for 20 students into a brightly painted and freshly plastered school for 60 with books, clothing, a limited water system and a makeshift kitchen. But government red tape prevented her from doing more than that.

"I was seeing these little kids die from AIDS," says Ms. Wilson. "I'd find six kids living in a one-room corrugated shack being taken care of by a granny, a next door neighbor or, worse, a 12-year-old head of household because both parents had died of AIDS."

She built an AIDS hospice house and a medical clinic tended to by a wealthy pediatrician who donates his time. "We pay for a driver and two nurses to help him," she says. "We bought a people mover to transport patients for their medical treatments, and we're buying an ambulance."

The foundation raised funds for a private school, the Waterberg Academy, which currently teaches 130 students. Those who can afford to pay tuition do. The foundation currently funds 16 who can't. All proceeds are plowed back into the school.

"It costs $1,800 U.S. to send a child to school for a year," she says. "That includes their uniforms, books and any extras because they have to have a ride to and from school. And they need after-school programs because these kids just can't go home, read and do homework. There's no electricity."

Ms. Wilson's microcosm caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey, who hit serious obstacles in building her school outside Johannesburg for underprivileged girls in the eighth grade and up.

"We'd done Quincy Jones' house in Los Angeles, and Quincy and Oprah are very close," Ms. Wilson says. "I know people who can get it done for her - people who aren't on graft. Her school is going to be so fantastic."

Ms. Wilson, who spends about half her time here and half in Africa, is letting her dazzling designer demeanor give way to her freer back country side.

"She used to put her facade back on when she was in Dallas," says Caroline Moody, her longtime personal assistant. "But the soul that has always been inside her but only surfaced in Africa is now coming out here, too."

"I really do," she says. "It sounds silly, but my proudest achievement is that I've earned the money to pay for my own home. No one had to buy it for me. I can go home, my dog Charlie's there, and I can turn on CSI. That's a big deal to me.

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