Sitting on her sunny patio in southwest London, Sarah Doukas, the woman responsible for launching the careers of many of Britain’s most famous models, looks pensive. “I don’t think much of interest has happened in this house,” she says apologetically. Cue the sound of disappointment at the prospect of writing solely about her rather plain white walls.

Another pause, and then it starts: there’s the bench where Kate Moss, fag in hand, sits on her regular visits; the living room in which Rod Stewart used to drop off the kids for his then wife, Rachel Hunter; the kitchen where American Vogue shot one of its latest features. Blimey. As I struggle to think what would constitute an interesting day for Doukas, she adds, by way of explanation: “I don’t think about things in that light. You just get used to it.”

Although unremarkable from the outside, her house, nestling in a row of Victorian terraces in Battersea, is a slice of fashion history. It was here, two decades ago, that Doukas, 54, founded Storm, the agency that has gone on to represent names such as Elle Macpherson, Carla Bruni, Sophie Dahl and Liberty Ross. And, of course, Kate Moss, whom Doukas spotted as a 14-year-old at New York’s JFK airport and propelled to superstardom as the face of Calvin Klein.

Born in Malta, where her father, a Royal Navy doctor, was stationed, Doukas attended Queen Ethelburga’s, a private school in Harrogate. There she met Lindy Branson, sister of the entrepreneur Richard, who was to prove an invaluable contact. She dropped out at 16 to manage a punk band in Paris and sell children’s clothes in America.

She returned to Britain in 1982 with her first husband, John Doukas, an American singer, and joined the Laraine Ashton modelling agency as a booker. Two years later, the couple bought the house for £89,000. “I always wanted to live this side of the river,” says Doukas, who describes everywhere else in the capital as having been “too full-on” for her.

In 1987, she struck out on her own, setting up Storm with £200,000 of start-up money from Richard Branson. Her aim was to make it the most exclusive agency in the business. “We would turn down very good girls who were offered to us and go out and discover new talent on the streets,” she says.

Storm’s beginnings were modest: Doukas ran the agency with two friends from the house, driving round in her car all day, scouting for fresh talent. She often brought her “finds” back there. “We didn’t even have a proper phone system, and would have to run up and down the stairs shouting to each other to come on the line,” she says. “It was quite mad, but so exciting to start something new.”

The house has repeatedly served as home for Doukas’s models. Angelina Jolie lived there for six months when she first came over from America in 1991, aged 16. “One of my agents over there called and said, “I’ve got this great young girl,’ ” she recalls.

“Of course, I knew she was Jon Voight’s daughter — I was really excited. They faxed me her picture; she was beautiful. Her mum entrusted her to us when she came to England and was signed with Storm. I still have her initial file.”

Over the years, the street’s other residents have become used to this steady parade of young wannabes and more established faces. “We had a door that linked next door’s garden with mine, and my neighbour used to come straight through whenever something was going on,” she says. “I’d often find him sitting there, chatting away with the models.”

Not that the area is a stranger to celebrity: Doukas’s neighbours have included Simon and Yasmin le Bon, Nigella Lawson and Tessa Dahl. “I’ll never forget seeing Sophie with Tessa, when she was just a girl,” Doukas says.

Doukas, who divorced in the 1990s and has since married Tim Garner, a creative director, wants to downsize. She has just put her house on the market for £1.25m (quickly reducing its price from an initial £1.5m). Her eldest daughter, Noelle, 29, who works with her mother at Storm, has long since moved out, Genevieve, 17, is leaving boarding school to study art in north London, while Poppy, 11, is going to boarding school in the autumn — “We don’t need a live-in nanny any more,” Doukas says.

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